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} I am not a gender-specific oracle thank you very much! But to address
} your question,
}
} 1976 Sir Clive codes BASIC smaller and tighter, and the Altair platform
} becomes the widely accepted standard for small computers.
}
} 1977 The Altair captures 60 percent of the exploding computer market,
} but Ed Roberts is enraged that other manufacturers are making
} peripherals, and destroys the company's facility with a homemade
} surface-to-surface missile based on the MOS 6502 chip.
}
} Sir Clive licenses BASIC to Apple and PET, both of which become
} formidable workstations for the high-end market.
}
} 1978 Sir Clive dumps the "really quite stone-age" Microsoft Basic in
} 1978, inventing a new language called the Highly Optimized Programming
} Environment, or HOPE. HOPE is cheap and revolutionary, and immediately
} purchased by all schools in England in preference over the government's
} offering, Parliament of the United Kingdom Educational Use Programming
} System, or PUKEUPS. The Home Secretary testifies before the House
} of Commons that no one noticed what the acronym spelled.
}
} 1980 Sir Clive envisions the computer for the consumer, and begins
} producing software for his next-generation operting system, High
} Yield Programming Environment, or HYPE. The system will be designed
} to run multiple programs at once, and to respond to voice commands.
} He estimates that it will take at least 18 months to develop.
}
} Sinclair is criticized for problems with the latest version of HOPE
} (HOPE-Z2), including a tendency to erase itself when the cassette
} is jiggled.
}
} 1981 IBM adopts HOPE as its operating system for the IBM PC. Sir Clive
} grants them full license over that version of the software, eliminating
} any chance of viable revenue stream from it.
}
} 1982 HOPE QZX-3 is released, which can support 32-bit hardware
} (although none exists commercially), and high-res color graphics.
} Consumers are slow to adopt the system, citing "features" like complete
} incompatibility with the previous operating system, and dvorak-only
} keyboard support. Sir Clive presses on.
}
} The as-yet unreleased HYPE environment is acquiring features such as
} the "rotunda" which lets users view multiple applications, each with
} its own "application door."
}
} 1983 Sir Clive is dismayed at the use of his software for
} "entertainment" use, and promises that this will be remedied in the
} next release. The public is baffled. He focuses his energy on a
} secret project known only as "that secret project of Clive's."
}
} 1984 Sir Clive is miffed that Apple beat him to the punch with the
} GUI, and vows that HYPE will be released this year.
}
} Late in the year, the New Operating and Program Environment (NOPE)
} is released, which merges features of HYPE into HOPE, with the result
} that it is almost unusable. The fact that the OS cannot run programs
} that have the word "game" in the title discourages young users from
} migrating.
}
} 1985 Sir Clive releases his long-awaited "secret project," which
} turns out to be a line of battery-powered personal helicopters.
}
} 1986 The wild success of Apple's Macintosh confirms for Sir Clive
} that HYPE is on the right track, and he promises a new, firm release
} date of late 1987.
}
} 1987 Nothing happens. Really.
}
} 1988 The Microsoft name is sold to Amstrad in late Q3 to pay for the
} prescient but ill-concieved helicopter plan.
}
} 1989 Amstrad ditches HYPE and releases slightly-updated versions of
} NOPE for the Atari, Amiga, and Acorn platforms.
}
} 1990 Amstrad disappears lock, stock, and barrel, and is never heard
} from again, and no records can be found that it ever existed.
}
} 1991 Macintosh OS (49%)and IBM's OS/2(35%) constitute 84% of the
} small-computer OS market.
}
} 1992 Steve Jobs releases the top-secret port of MacOS to the intel
} platform. Superior stability and greater market penertation for
} software begin the slide toward's Apple's dominance in the field.
} Steve Wozniak speaks very rudely to Steve Jobs and severs all official
} ties to the company.
}
} 1993 Federal officials block the planned acquisition of Intuit by
} Apple. Apple is accused of pressuring OEMs to ship MacOS on all of
} their machines.
}
} 1994 IBM, struggling to maintain an 11% share of the PC market,
} tries to get Clive Sinclair involved with their next-generation OS.
} Sir Clive is very busy with miniaturizing solar-powered dogwalking
} machines, and turns the offer down.
}
} 1995 Apple is accused of unfair trade practices by the Justice
} Department. The press questions Steve Jobs on the whereabouts of
} Woz. It is rumored that Woz has performed an act of ritual suicide.
} He emerges from his extremely large house in Northern California and
} tells the press he has been hiking his yard for a few weeks and not
} been near a phone.
}
} 1996 Steve Jobs is the richest man on earth, but lives in a custom
} fully-armored porsche. Woz has just purchased the boards of education
} of six western states, including california, with hopes of turning
} them around.
}
} 1997 To avoid the risk of anti-trust litigation, Apple purchases
} a minority interest in IBM and tries to revive interest in OS/2.
} Guy Kawasaki is arrested for the attempted murder of Steve Jobs.
} Kawasaki was calm in his statement,saying "the people at PARC warned us
} this might happen, that one of the team might turn to the dark side.
} I had to do this because of my love of the Mac and all that it once
} stood for." Kawasaki was assisted in his escape from a California
} mental hospital by a guerilla group of some kind. His whereabouts
} have never been determined.
}
} 1998 Apple is sued by Cuisinart for integrating a food processor into
} every Apple computer. "We're only doing what customers want," Jobs
} said at a press conference. "Everybody has to eat, we already make the
} software that runs the food processor, so we think slicer integration
} is a very logical step in the development of personal computing.
}
} A little-known UNIX-based system begins to gain popularity among
} technical types. Apple moves to crush the movement in the press,
} and the Finnish originator of the system mysteriously disappears
} while going out for a bite to eat.
}
} 1999 The federal courts rule that Apple is a monopoly, but can't seem
} to print any of the documents that would enforce a commercial breakup.
} Attorney General Geoffery Fieger loses part of a finger on a reboot,
} and investigations continue...
}
}
} The oracle asks that you burn a Next computer on the altar, while
} chanting "Sir Clive full of grace..."
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