Microsoft in space
Bill's final frontier - guess it's the MIR

Surely you would like to shoot most of Microsoft's products straight to the moon... but what would happen if somebody really sent them into an orbit?

10 signs the new MIR computer runs Windows95:

  • The computer keeps asking you to Insert Setup Disk #3 to continue.
  • There is no space left on the hard drive to store mission data.
  • The computer refuses to interact with the Mir's (Brand: Mr. Java).
  • Millions of dollars are traced to phone calls to a Redmond, WA 900#.
  • MIR cosmonauts are caught stealing RAM from other satellite's computers to keep their system running.
  • The Space Shuttle can no longer dock with MIR since " the proper driver cannot be found".
  • The system locks up whenever the astronauts try to run life support, the solar panels and thrusters at the same time.
  • The cosmonauts spend three days looking for cyrillic version of the CTRL-ALT-DEL keys ...
  • Alien ships secretly observing Mir flee in terror.

... and the top sign the new MIR computer runs Windows95:

  1. You start receiving welcoming e-mail from the Borg.

... and even the Space Shuttle flies with Microsoft

On Friday, January 24th 1998, the broadcast of NASA Channel in american cable TV showed in a live transmission how the experiments and Space Shuttle crew were doing. The men onboard needed to send instructions to the experiments in the cargo bay and were using a laptop to do it.
As some of you may have heard, there was a "computer problem" onboard as reported by CNN. The exchange of information between the crew and the Johnson Space Center (JSC) went something like this:

Crew: Urgent Johnson, we can't get a DOS prompt.
JSC: Press C: and Enter.
Crew: Heck, we're not familiar with all this.
JSC: What screen are you looking at?
Crew: It says "My computer" and, err, various other icons.
JSC: Click on START and then shut down.
Crew: You click the START button to shut down?
JSC: Yeah. Isn't it obvious?
Crew: Somebody get me an aspirin™.
JSC: Just hit the damn START button.
Crew: We can't do that. It didn't load a mouse.
JSC: Didn't load any mouse at all?
Crew: Well, yeah, a PS/2 or something. But we don't have one of those.
JSC: Okay. Press ALT and ESC.
Crew: And what does that do?
JSC: It should help.
Crew: Negative.
JSC: Stand by, will replicate the problem down here.
Crew: Roger.

[Long pause]

JSC: Okay then. Double click the MS-DOS icon.
Crew: I don't have a mouse.
JSC: Go to backup.
Crew: Which is what?
JSC: Dock with the Russians. They have a Unix Workstation you can borrow.


This way back to the warscenes...


Originally found at www.autsch.de!