Fun_People Archive
10 Apr
Kitchen Komputing

Date: Sat, 10 Apr 93 13:33:02 PDT
To: Fun_People
Subject: Kitchen Komputing

[At Lucasfilm we used to joke about how pretty soon everything would have
embedded processors - our stereotype was the Cuisinart with an ethernet
connector.  I guess the following article just shows how great minds really do
"think alike"... (or is that "would like to think"?) --psl]


 From: John R. Covert  09-Apr-1993 1336 <daemon@covert.enet.dec.com>
 From: Desperado #3079: [t_parmenter@ragmop.enet.dec.com]
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Powerful enough to suck prairie dogs from their holes, but gentle all the same.
Not an official publication.  Forward with daring and whimsy.  Circle the earth.
Should you rip something off from here,  be a sport and rip this header off too.
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 From:	US2RMC::"cmn@ftp.com" 
 from the OS-DEBATE forum on FidoNet.
 Downloaded from the OS/2 Shareware BBS in Fairfax, Virginia, USA,
 Chris Norloff cnorloff@tecnet1.jcte.jcs.mil
 From: Hadrian Katz

I had a dream:

Monday, 10 AM -- Chicago, Illinois -- Start-up software developer
Cuisine International announced CUISINENET, the first internetworking program
to seamlessly integrate word and food processing.  Called a
breakthrough for small restaurants and snack bars, Cuisine Chairman Mark Meigs
confidently predicted sales of thousands of copies with shipments soon to
begin.

Monday, 4 PM -- New York -- Cuisine International shares closed sharply
higher on announcement of new CUISINENET product.

Tuesday, 9 AM -- Redmond, Washington -- Microsoft Chairman William H.
Gates, III announced that Microsoft Food for Windows would soon enter
beta testing.  Gates described the product as the first of a projected
family of products to include Food for Windows, designed for small
commercial dining establishments; Personal Food for Windows, designed for home
kitchens; Portable Food for Windows, designed for lunchboxes; and, of
course, at the high end, Food for Windows NC (Nouvelle Cuisine) designed for
large institutional dining rooms.  Asked by a reporter about
CUISINENET, Gates said that he had never heard of the product, but was not
surprised by it, because the software business is highly competitive, and
Microsoft has to compete on the merits with many strong competitors, as the
FTC had recently concluded.

Tuesday, 3 PM -- Chicago, Illinois --  An angry Mark Meigs showed
reporters a copy of the nondisclosure agreement signed by Bill Gates, under
which Cuisine International had informed Microsoft a year earlier about
plans for CUISINENET.  Meigs said that in hindsight, he should never have
signed the agreement, as the only thing he learned from Microsoft was
that Gates was considering making changing to Windows.

Wednesday, 9 AM -- Redmond, Washington -- Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates
announced that Microsoft would soon publish specifications for the
Windows Open Kitchen Architecture (WOKA), a series of design specifications
to permit manufacturers of toasters, ranges, and other kitchen
appliances to integrate their products into the forthcoming Microsoft Food for
Windows line.  Asked about reports of a nondisclosure agreement with
Cuisine International for a similar product, Gates said that the other
product was really at most a niche product, and would probably have less
functionality than the food-related features that Microsoft would be building
into the new Unsaturated FAT File System which would be part of DOS
7.0.  Gates said that he doubted there would be much interest in a dead-end
solution that would not be able to keep up to date with advances in
WOKA.  Gates added that over 11,000 manufacturers of kitchen appliances
were already having serious discussions with Microsoft about WOKA, and that
he expected almost all important eaters of food to standardize on the
WOKA environment.

Wednesday, 10 AM -- Redmond, Washington -- Microsoft Chairman Bill
Gates announced that he would be giving the keynote speech at the American
Bakers annual convention on "Nutrition at Your Fingertips."  Gates played
down speculation that he would use the Bakers convention to introduce
Microsoft Food for Windows, saying only that alpha testing was proceeding
ahead of schedule, and the product would be shipped when it was ready.

Wednesday, 11 AM -- Redmond, Washington -- Microsoft Corporation
announced that its Chairman, William H. Gates, III, had made a donation of
over $250 of personal funds to the Cordon Bleu to begin an endowment fund
for the Bill Gates Professorship of Advanced Cookery.  The famous French
cooking school confirmed that it had agreed to be a beta site for the
much discussed Food for Windows application sweet.

Thursday, 9 AM -- New York -- PCWeek Magazine reported in a copyrighted
story that it had obtained a copy of correspondence from Microsoft to
Cuisine International, demanding that the small developer of kitchen
software cease using the Cuisine name, as it infringes on the trademark for
Microsoft Food for Windows NC.  Microsoft added that Chairman Mark Meigs
would also have to change his own name as Mark infringed a copyright on
the Windows Edit menu, Meigs infringed the trademark on Meigs Field in
Microsoft Flight Simulator, and Chairman infringed the trademark on Bill
Gates's title which he had acquired with personal funds from Mao's
estate.  Also, Microsoft advised that while the company did not actually
have to move out of Chicago, use of the name on press releases infringed a
trademark on Windows 4.0

Thursday, 4 PM -- New York -- Cuisine International stock closed at
0-bid, 1/16-asked.

Friday, 9 AM -- ? -- An anonymous spokesman for an unnamed Midwestern
software developer announced the discontinuation of operations.
Undescribed legal problems were cited as the reason.  Others speculated that a
failure to appreciate the competitive nature of the software business may
have led to the company's sudden collapse.

Monday, 9 AM -- Microsoft Internal Mail
 From:  billg
 To:  mikem
 Re:  Food Program
 Please see if you can reassign one of the 3,000 engineers from the
OS/2 virus development project to do a feasibility study on a food-related
program.  Not sure what it would do.  Low priority.

_______________________________________________________________________
			    
 From:	SOFBAS::GONZALEZ
 Subj:	maybe one has a much better gooey UI?
> 
> >From the current Forbes:
> 
>     You can't say that Americans don't have their priorities 
>     straight. Last year they spent $4 billion on chocolate, which 
>     is a bit more that the amount spent on personal computer 
>     hardware and software put together.
> 
Everyone I know knows what to do with chocolate. 

© 1993 Peter Langston