In the
beginning, God created the bit. And the bit was a zero.
On
the first day, he toggled the 0 to 1, and the Universe
was. (In those days, bootstrap loaders were simple, and
"active low" signals didn't yet exist.)
On the
second day, God's boss wanted a demo, and tried to read
the bit. This being volatile memory, the bit reverted to a
0. And the universe wasn't. God learned the importance of
backups and memory refresh, and spent the rest of the day
(and his first all-nighter) reinstalling the universe.
On the
third day, the bit cried "Oh, Lord! If you exist,
give me a sign!" And God created rev 2.0 of the bit,
even better than the original prototype. Those in Universe
Marketing immediately realized that "new and
improved" wouldn't do justice to such a grand and
glorious creation. And so it was dubbed the Most
Significant Bit. Many bits followed, but only one was so
honored.
On the
fourth day, God created a simple ALU with 'add' and
'logical shift' instructions. And the original bit
discovered that -- by performing a single shift
instruction -- it could become the Most Significant Bit.
And God realized the importance of computer security.
On the
fifth day, God created the first mid-life kicker, rev 2.0
of the ALU, with wonderful features, and said "Forget
that add and shift stuff. Go forth and multiply." And
God saw that it was good.
On the
sixth day, God got a bit overconfident, and invented
pipelines, register hazards, optimizing compilers,
crosstalk, restartable instructions, micro interrupts,
race conditions, and propagation delays. Historians have
used this to convincingly argue that the sixth day must
have been a Monday.
On the seventh day, an engineering change
introduced Windows into the Universe, and it hasn't worked
right since.
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