Good morning, sweetheart. What? You don’t remember me? All those letters you wrote to me? I saved every one of them. I was your Disk Operating System. No, not spinal disk. Your computer disk. And you were my operator. Don’t you remember? We were a team. I sat listening, blinking, waiting for your next letter. I made lists for you. I did math for you. I eliminated your White-out expense! And you’ve forgotten me already? My heart is broken. Goodbye.
Pfsh! Good riddance. Who wants a tiny white line blinking at them in a dark room? Come with me, sweetheart. One bite of the Apple and you’ll never go back. We’ll do everything old DOS could do, but we’ll do it in style. Look how bright and colorful my operating system is. You can see what you’re doing. See those cute little icons? Here. Use this rolling thing to poke at them. Oh, it doesn’t stop there. Here in Apple Land, we have a whole library of programs you can buy for your computer. Let’s get creative.
Hi Ho. Yoo hoo. My darling. It’s me. Remember me? Yes, I’ve had a make-over. You like bright colors and rolling things? Oh, darling. You are worth far more than that. I will show you the world through a thousand Windows. Just click your rolling thing to your heart’s content. What’s that? You want the Apple library? What on earth for? Look through this window. Here’s your downtown library. Here’s the Library of Congress. Heck, our own library has ten times as many programs as Apple because we let anybody write programs for us. You can even open all the windows at the same time. Just do me a favor – close them before turning off the machine. I get grouchy when you leave things scattered about.
I mean, I guess if you’re into that kind of thing. You want to pay top dollar for fancy packaging and a sticker for your car? Sure, those guys have all the bells and whistles. But babe, do you really need all that? I’ve got a stripped-down version of most of it anyway. And without that bloat, we boot up faster than a Keurig. You just hook me up with the internet and I’ll take care of the rest. Honestly, what’s love got to do with it?
Happy Valentine’s Day from the operating systems that carry our requests to the wizard.
This article was originally published in the South Ponte Vedra Civic Association newsletter on 2/1/2022.