If operating systems were airlines

[magid]

I'm going through some old stuff (bills from 1994? not so necessary to own), and found this, on an undated photocopy of what looks like the upper half of a page in a magazine. It still amuses me, though at this point, partly as a fossil.

Dos Air:
Passengers walk out onto the runway, grab hold of the plane, push it until it gets in the air, hop on, then jump off when it hits the ground.
They grab the plane again, push it back into the air, hop on, jump off...

Mac Airways:
The cashiers, flight attendants, and pilots all look the same, talk the same, and act the same. When you ask them questions about the flight, they reply that you don't want to know, don't need to know, and would you please return to your seat and watch the movie.

Windows Airlines:
The terminal is neat and clean, the attendants courteous, the pilots capable. The fleet of Lear jets the carrier operates is immense. Your jet takes off without a hitch, pushes above the clouds and, at 20,000 feet, explodes without warning.

OS/2 Skyways:
The terminal is almost empty - only a few prospective passengers mill about. The announcer says that a flight has just departed, although no planes appear to be on the runway. Airline personnel apologize profusely to customers in hushed voices, pointing from time to time to the sleek, powerful jets outside. They tell each passenger how great the flight will be on these new jets and how much safer it will be than Windows Airlines, but they will have to wait a little longer for the technicians to finish the flight systems. Maybe until mid-1995. Maybe longer.

Fly Windows NT:
Passengers carry their seats out onto the the tarmac and place them in the outline of a plane. They sit down, flap their arms, and make jet swooshing sounds as if they are flying.

Unix Express:
Passengers bring a pieceof the airplane and a box of tools with them to the airport. They gather on the tarmac, arguing about what kind of plane they want to build. The passengers split into groups and build several different aircraft but give them all the same name. Only some passengers reach their destinations, but all of them believe they arrived.

Also found: a copy of A grandchild's guide to using Grandpa's computer (with a hat tip to Dr. Seuss).

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

The passengers split into groups and build several different aircraft but give them all the same name.

This line for some reason especially tickled me.

[treacle-well.livejournal.com]

I actually temped once in a place using OS/2.

I found the Unix description especially amusing.

[danger-chick.livejournal.com]

We had some OS/2 machines at UIUC when I was there as an undergrad. I think I tried to use one of those machines once, but couldn't quite figure out how to.

I am reminded of the time on NCIS that Gibbs takes McGee with him to interview a computer geek so that McGee can translate. At one point McGee translates something Gibbs says as, "One man's Linux is another man's OS/2."