IP: 17 Syllables to Share, and a Captive Audience

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

Date: Tue, 19 Jan 1999 16:02:38 -0800
From: "Robert J. Berger" <rberger () ibd com>


http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/yr/mo/biztech/articles/08soft-haiku.html

The "Sony / Microsoft Haiku Error Messages" though noted as a fictitious 
Internet "urban myth"  is read into the court record by Judge Jackson!

"Opening Thursday's session of the Microsoft antitrust trial, Federal 
District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson advised the lawyers that he had 
recently been handed a news item that it turned out had been circulating on 
the Internet in one form or another for years. 

The fictitious article, which Judge Jackson read into the court record, 
purported to announce that Sony had come up with a new operating system: 

"Instead of producing the cryptic error messages characteristic of 
Microsoft's Windows 95, 3.1. and DOS operating systems, Sony's chairman, 
Asai Tawara, said, 'We intend to capture the high ground by putting a human, 
Japanese face on what has been -- until now -- an operating system that 
reflects Western cultural hegemony.' " ... "