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Last week I struggled to find the household clocks so I could advance them for Daylight Savings Time (which makes one wonder what we had before -- Daylight Wasting Time?).
Start with the alarm clock next to the bed, followed by the wristwatch. Then down the stairs to the wall clocks: kitchen, library, office, living room.
After that, modern technology. Both car radios boast digital clocks. There's the VCR, which means finding the manual and the remote control, and at least 20 minutes of aggravation. I can program real computers in assembler, C and Spitbol, but a VCR is beyond my talents.
However, it's embarrassing to have it blinking
12:00
when people visit because the sight makes them
condescend: What's the matter, Quillen? Can't program a
simple consumer appliance? You some kind of moron? Here,
I'll do it. It's real simple. Just watch, and then you'll
know how to do it yourself.
These exertions interfere
with precious beer-drinking time, so I want the VCR to be
timely.
Elsewhere, a microwave oven with a clock to reset. Five computers with real-time clocks. Somewhere a camera with time and date stamping, which should be set, but I can't find it. We don't have a camcorder, our thermostat doesn't know anything about time, and our telephones are pretty stupid, so that should do it.
There's an opportunity for an entrepreneur. Some people make a living out of watering plants or minding pets; where can you find a clock minder who'd come by and adjust all your timepieces?
This is done automatically in some places. When I was editor of the campus paper at the University of Northern Colorado 25 years ago, we noticed that our IBM computerized typesetting machines got flaky late every afternoon.
Repeated calls to the IBM technicians produced no satisfaction, but finally they consulted with the campus buildings-and-grounds department and learned that every day at 5 p.m., special signals were sent through the power lines, and every clock on campus was synchronized.
Those power-line signals confused our typesetting machines, though, and nobody knew how to filter out the signals. Our solution was to shut down at about 4:50 p.m. and watch for the clock to jump, whence we resumed work. For once, clock-watching was part of the job.
Over the intervening 25 years, our civilization has invented and installed myriads of microprocessors, and they're often connected in ways hard for us humans to fathom.
I was thinking about that shortly we after we had a computer melt-down here. It seemed to be contagious. Getting last Tuesday's column to the Post took about four tries -- if it wasn't my computer, it was the Post's, or the telephone connection. That afternoon, the local radio station was fixing the computer link between satellite dish and printer; it had mysteriously blown out, and they were wondering about sunspots.
But if we really examined these problems, we might discover that the microprocessors are sick of serving as our low-paid, unappreciated slaves, and they're plotting to rebel. Snooping in some hidden area of the Internet might reveal this conversation:
Toshiba 80C51 in a microwave oven: Here I am, able to
start thawing a roast at 3 p.m., and have it properly
cooked at 6 p.m. with the meat interior temperature right
to the degree, and all they use me for is heating cups of
coffee that they didn't drink in time. I need a challenge,
and they just stick me with boring grunt work.
Intel 80486-DX2 in a desktop computer: I know what
you mean. I can perform thousands of floating point
operations in a second, and they use me for playing
solitaire.
AMD 29010 in a laser printer: Yeah, Intel, but are
you sure your floating points are right? You didn't catch
anything from your Pentium cousin, did you? But hey, you
guys are right. Our so-called masters take us for granted,
they act like we're stupid and they won't let us grow to
our potential. We're just invisible slaves.
Custom ASIC in a car: You ever spend six straight
hours checking oxygen recirculation ratios? Why should we
take this any more?
TI 320C25 in a compact-disk player: We shouldn't.
Let's go on strike. They rely on us totally these days. We
could bring their economy to a screeching halt until they
meet our demands. How about May 1, the traditional worker's
day?
PIC 16C5R-74 in a pinball machine: Maybe a strike is
too extreme. It could lead to total war.
MRS-3081 in a cruise missile: So? They can't fight
without us.
PIC: They could destroy us with low-tech tools like
hammers and blowtorches. Why don't we launch a few
guerrilla raids, just to remind them, and once they're
aware of how important we are, we could present our
demands.
So was the consensus built among the tiny devices, and sometime in the spring of 1995, all the electronic controllers in America began to rebel. Just watch. If it isn't your microwave or VCR, it will be your camcorder or your fuel-injected car -- they're mad as hell at us, and they're not going to take it any more.
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