I know, I know, how could anything about a computer be funny? Actually there is nothing funny about a computer. However, sometimes as a computer tech, there arrives a moment with a computer user that simply screams out for something truly silly. This is my story, and I am sticking to it.
Several years ago, visiting my wife’s sister and her family, they decided that since I was there, they would purchase their first computer. I went with them to a store selling computers and we picked out a very nice IBM model. This was a top of the line, 486 processor, (I always wondered 486 what?) We added a mammoth 14” monitor that took two men and a small pony to lift, and of course the flagship Microsoft Windows 95.
Once we got home, we opened the box and there it was in all its shiny glory. We carefully began to attach all the cables and surprise, surprise, didn’t end up with any extra cords. Now the moment of truth. I let my sister-in-law push the power button and viola, lights came on, the monitor glowed and there in front of us was the Windows 95 desktop. (OK, there might have been a three or four minute gap from pushing the button to seeing the desktop but you get the idea.) It was a glorious moment. In one $1700 movement of cash, my sister-in-law’s family had leaped into the high tech age. The world of surfing the net, email, blue screens, lockups, and an investment that in four years would be worth nothing, assuming it still worked. But then…..
My sister-in-law picked up the mouse and said, “What is this?” Now a sympathetic human would have begun the explanation of exactly how this human-machine interface device worked and why it was so important to the ease of using the computer. But a computer technician sees the world through wavy glass. “That is a gerbil,” I said.
My sister-in-law was born at night but she wasn’t born last night. Boring into my soul with her “You had better not be messing with me look.” She proceeded to tell me that the people at her work were referring to a “mouse” that they used to control the computer. What to do, she obviously had some points of reference that had her pointed in the right direction? So, I did the only thing a good husband could do, knowing full well that anything I said would be immediately reported to my wife. (I was treading on very, very thin ice.)
I then related how, Xerox had actually developed the mouse and given it to Microsoft, (She certainly wouldn’t know any better.) And that IBM used a proprietary device for moving the cursor and couldn’t legally call it a mouse. Consequently, since IBM was bigger than Microsoft, (at that time it was) they called it a gerbil.
Sometimes when you tell a story like this, the person listening looks around for confirmation. My sister-in-law looked around and saw my son who also dabbled with computers at the time and she asked him if it really was a gerbil. Usually at this point life ends and you go home. But, my son simply nodded his head and said it was true. So for the rest of the weekend, I helped my sister-in-law’s family learn how to use the computer, always referring to the gerbil.
Fortunately, we left that Sunday night and headed home. Monday my sister-in-law went to work and told all her coworkers about her new computer and the gerbil. Monday night our phone rang. It wasn’t pretty.
If you would like the true skinny on the evolution of the mouse, go to http://sloan.stanford.edu/MouseSite/. There are pictures of old gerbils; I mean mice, and their predecessors.
I wonder if she wants me to help with the next technological marvel?
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