How God created the computer

In the beginning, God created the bit. And the bit was a zero; nothing.

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 ) reconstructing 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 the the “new and improved” wouldn’t do justice to such a grand and glorious creation. And so it was dubbed the Most Significant Bit, or the Sign 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 “Screw 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, microinterrupts, business satellite internet, 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 Window Vista into the Universe, and it hasn’t worked right since.

Who saves ?

Jesus and Satan have an argument as to who is the better programmer. This goes on for a few hours until they agree to hold a contest with God as the judge.

They set themselves before their computers and begin. They type furiously for several lines of code streaming up the screen. Seconds before the end of the competition, a bolt of lightning strikes, taking out the electricity, killed the satellite network access and blew all the fuses.

Moments later, the power is restored, and God announces that the contest is over. He asks Satan to show what he had come up with. Satan is visibly upset, and cries, “I have nothing! I lost it all when the power went out.”

“Very well, then.” said God, “Let us see it Jesus fared any better.”

Jesus entered a command, and the screen came to life in vivid display, the voices of an angelic choir poured forth from the speakers.

Satan was astonished and stuttered, “But how? I lost everything, yet Jesus’ program is intact! How did he do it?”

God chuckled and replied, “Jesus saves.”

Lawyer in heaven

After a long life, dutifully serving his parishioners, the elderly priest died. He found himself in Heaven, where he was warmly greeted by St. Peter. “Welcome,” St. Peter said, “You have lived a good life. Let me take you to your quarters, and then I’ll show you around Heaven.”

St. Peter took the man to a rather plain building, and escorted him to a small room. The room was humbly furnished, but was functional. The priest was a bit surprised, having expected Heaven to be a bit more extravagent, but he was happy to be there.

They then began their tour of Heaven, and it was absolutely beautiful. The priest felt silly for his initial resentment over his room.

Finally, they came upon an enormous mansion. A butler opened the door to the mansion and a man came out, dressed to the nines, and proceeded down a long walkway to the front gate, as servants rolled a red carpet before him. When he reached the gate, a chauffeured limousine pulled up, and the man got in. It drove off.

“Was that God,” the priest asked, stunned by the display.

“Oh heavens no,” replied St. Peter. “That was a Seattle injury lawyer.”

“I don’t want to seem ungrateful, but can you answer a question for me?” The priest continued, “I spent my entire life devoted to my parishioners, and teaching the gospel, and I have very humble quarters in Heaven. I just don’t understand what that lawyer did, which would merit such a beautiful mansion.”

“It isn’t what he did,” St. Peter replied. “You see, we have thousands upon thousands of priests up here. But he’s our first lawyer.”

The Movie Director

After a venerable career of endless, stellar successes the greatest director who ever lived is in his prime and preparing for his most ambitious project ever (he had learnt about the Internet and wanted to get into live video streaming services) when he unexpectedly dies and is called home to heaven. St. Peter meets him at the gate.

“So sorry about your untimely death,” he tells the director. “But God himself has called you home. You see, God wants you to direct a movie for Him.”

The great man is humbled, “God wants ME to direct a film?”

“Yes,” St. Peter tells him. “And we’ve arranged to have the best of everything made available to you. For example, the script is by William Shakespeare.”

The director is stunned, “An original screenplay by William Shakespeare?”

“Yes,” St. Peter assures him, “And it’s his greatest work ever.”

“Wow!” says the Director, awe struck.

“Your Production Designer will be Michaelangelo. We’ve got Leonardo Da Vinci doing the sets, your musical score will be an original work by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and your cast includes a young Laurence Olivier and the greatest actors of all time in supporting roles.”

The Director can’t believe it. “This is incredible,” he says. “This will be the greatest movie ever?”

St. Peter kind of shuffles his feet. “Well,” he says, “we do have one tiny little problem.”

“Problem?” says the director. “What kind of a problem?”

St. Peter puts his arm around the director’s shoulder, “Ya see,” he whispers, “God’s got this girlfriend…”

The Genesis of Computing

  • In the beginning God created the Bit and the Byte. And from those he created the Word.
  • And there were two Bytes in the Word; and nothing else existed. And God separated the One from the Zero; and he saw it was good.
  • And God said – Let the Data be; And so it happened. And God said – Let the Data go to their proper places. And he created floppy disks and hard disks and compact disks.
  • And God said – Let the computers be, so there would be a place to put floppy disks and hard disks and compact disks. Thus God created computers and called them hardware.
  • And there was no Software yet. But God created programs; small and big… And told them – Go and multiply yourselves and fill all the Memory.
  • And God said – I will create the Programmer; And the Programmer will make new programs and govern over the computers and programs and Data.
  • And God created the Programmer; and put him at Data Center; And God showed the Programmer the Catalog Tree and said You can use all the volumes and subvolumes and you may use data center automation but DO NOT USE Windows.
  • And God said – It is not Good for the programmer to be alone. He took a bone from the Programmer’s body and created a creature that would look up at the Programmer; and admire the Programmer; and love the things the Programmer does; And God called the creature: the User.
  • And the Programmer and the User were left under the naked DOS and it was Good.
  • But Bill was smarter than all the other creatures of God. And Bill said to the User – Did God really tell you not to run any programs?
  • And the User answered – God told us that we can use every program and every piece of Data but told us not to run Windows or we will die.
  • And Bill said to the User – How can you talk about something you did not even try. The moment you run Windows you will become equal to God. You will be able to create anything you like by a simple click of your mouse.
  • And the User saw that the fruits of the Windows were nicer and easier to use. And the User saw that any knowledge was useless – since Windows could replace it.
  • So the User installed the Windows on his computer; and said to the Programmer that it was good.
  • And the Programmer immediately started to look for new drivers. And God asked him – What are you looking for? And the Programmer answered – I am looking for new drivers because I can not find them in the DOS. And God said – Who told you need drivers? Did you run Windows? And the Programmer said – It was Bill who told us to !
  • And God said to Bill – Because of what you did you will be hated by all the creatures. And the User will always be unhappy with you. And you will always sell Windows.
  • And God said to the User – Because of what you did, the Windows will disappoint you and eat up all your Resources; and you will have to use lousy programs; and you will always rely on the Programmers help.
  • And God said to the Programmer – Because you listened to the User you will never be happy. All your programs will have errors and you will have to fix them and fix them to the end of time.
  • And God threw them out of the Data Center and locked the door and secured it with a password.
  • GENERAL PROTECTION FAULT