The MS, of course, stood for Microsoft, the company that was started by the brilliant software genius Bill Gates. Gates is a very rich man today -- Forbes magazine estimates that he's worth more than the entire O.J. Simpson defense team combined -- and do you want to know why? The answer is one word: versions.

To understand what I mean by versions, let's consider an analogy involving cars. Suppose you've purchased a new car, and you notice that, although it does move, it goes very slowly, is extremely hard to steer, and makes a loud scraping sound. You study this problem for a while, and you conclude that the most likely cause is that the car does not have any front wheels. So you mention this to the salesperson, and he tells you that you have Version 1.0 of the car, but that Version 1.1 will be out shortly, and it will feature wheels in front as well as back. So when Version 1.1 comes out, you upgrade, which means you pay money. But you're happy, because now you have a car with a complete set of wheels, and you're totally satisfied with it from the moment that you pull out of the dealer's lot to the moment, about 90 seconds later, when you drive into a public fountain. This is when find out that brakes are not scheduled to appear until Version 1.3.

This is very much the way MS-DOS worked. The original version, 1.0, did virtually nothing except cause the computer screen to say:

A:>

That was it. Really. Ask anybody who used MS-DOS computers back then. You'd turn them on, and there'd be this A: staring back at you. What did it mean? Why A:? Why not some other letter, or even an actual word? And what was the little pointy > thing for? We will never know the answer. It's one of the many mysteries of MS- DOS.

So, anyway, people would turn on their computers, and stare at the A:> for awhile, scratching their heads, and then finally they'd try typing something after the A:>, perhaps something like:

A:> HELLO

But here was the crucial thing about MS-DOS Version 1.0: No matter what you typed in, it would respond as follows:

BAD COMMAND OR FILE NAME

Then, with no further explanation, it would go back to:

A:>

There were rumors -- never verified -- that if you typed in certain secret code words, you could get some response other than A:> or BAD COMMAND OR FILE NAME, but if there were such code words, only Bill Gates ever knew what they were. So mainly what this version of the MS-DOS was used for -- millions of person- hours were spent on this -- was trying to get it to do something, anything. If you were to travel back in time and look at the average person's computer screen during that era, you'd see what looked like a conversation between the computer user and an unusually hostile employee of the Department of Motor Vehicles:

A:> HELLO BAD COMMAND OR FILE NAME A:> HELP BAD COMMAND OR FILE NAME A:> DO SOMETHING! BAD COMMAND OR FILE NAME A:>RUN A PROGRAM, DAMMIT! BAD COMMAND OR FILE NAME A:>

YOU BAD COMMAND OR FILE NAME,

*HOLE

This was pretty much all people did with MS-DOS Version 1.0. So you can imagine how excited everybody was when Microsoft came out with Version 1.1, which had a whole new capability. In addition to doing this:

A:>

It would sometimes also do this:

C:>

A new letter! This was very, very exciting news for those of us in the computer geek world. We all immediately upgraded to Version 1.1. Of course, no matter what we typed, it still answered BAD COMMAND OR FILE NAME. But we felt renewed hope.

Over the next few years, Microsoft continued to come out with new improved, versions of MS-DOS, featuring a constantly expanding repertoire ofincomprehensible and/or scary screen messages, including:

B:> NON-SYSTEM DISK OR DISK ERROR INVALID SWITCH PATH NOT FOUND WARNING! ALL DATA WILL BE LOST!

And just about everybody's all-time favorite:

ABORT, RETRY, FAIL?

We loyal Microgeeks faithfully upgraded every time a new version came out, until finally, somewhere around Version 3.7, we had reached the point where we could use MS-DOS to actually run programs on our computers, and Bill Gates had reached the point where he had approximately 217 personal jet airplanes.

I should point out that, while all this [MS-DOS masochism] was going on, there was another kind of computer developing, in a parallel universe. This was the Apple, and it operated on an entirely different concept, which was: A regular human could use it. You simply turned it on, and immediately, just like that, you could do stuff with it. It had little pictures on the screen, and a little mouse that made a pointer move to the picture you wanted; even a child could understand this. For many years, while we MS-DOS people were typing insanely obscure instructions like:

dir c:\abcproj\docs\lttrs\sales\apr\*.

*the Apple people were simply aiming their little mouse pointers at little pictures and going click.

In short, the Apple was far easier to use. So the vast majority of us serious computer users rejected it. As I noted in the introduction, the main reason we have computers is so we can be tormented by them. We don't want some wussy user-friendly computer: We want a challenge.

That's why, to this very day, Apple is not considered by us cyberwonks to be a truly serious computer. It is viewed as a computer that is popular mainly with your flaky or artsy-fartsy type of individual -- your artist, your poet, your beatnik, your flower-arranger, your heroin addict, your Barry Manilow. We serious users pride ourselves on wrestling with openly hostile computers that are running on an operating system from the proud, incomprehensible Microsoft tradition. That operating system, of course, is Windows.

As I write these words, the computer world is still reverberating with the excitement surrounding the introduction of Windows 95, which replaced Windows Version 3.11, which replaced Windows 3.1, which replaced Windows Version 3.0, and so on backward to the original Windows Version 1.0, which did nothing except put a colorful Windows logo on the screen along with a message that said OUT OF MEMORY.

Windows 95 represented a major step forward in the sense that it was virtually nothing like any of the earlier Windows versions and nobody had any idea how to use it. Naturally it was hugely popular. Everybody wanted it; Microsoft was getting bulk orders from rainforest-dwelling tribes that didn't even have electricity.

Nevertheless, there are certain basic computer terms that you need to try to familiarize yourself with, so that when you go to purchase a computer, you don't sound like just some random putz. Instead, you'll sound like a specific putz who memorized some terms out of a book.

HARDWARE This is the part of the computer that stops working when you spill beer on it.

SOFTWARE These are the PROGRAMS that you put on the HARD DRIVE by sticking them through the little SLOT. The function of the software is to give instructions to the CPU, which is a set of three initials inside the computer that rapidly processes billions of tiny facts, called BYTES, and within a fraction of a second sends you an ERROR MESSAGE that requires you to call the CUSTOMER SUPPORT HOTLINE and be placed on HOLD for approximately the life span of a CARIBOU. Software is usually accompanied by DOCUMENTATION in the form of big fat scary MANUALS that nobody ever reads. In fact, for the past five years most of the "manuals" shipped with software products have actually been copies of Stephen King's THE STAND with new covers pasted on.

MEGAHERTZ This is a really, really big hertz.

RAM This is a shorthand way of referring to "ROM." The unit of measurement for RAM is the "MEG," which stands for a certain amount of RAM." The function of RAM is to give guys a way of deciding whose computer has the biggest, studliest, most tumescent MEMORY. This is important, because with today's complex software, the more memory a computer has, the faster it can produce error messages. So the bottom line is, if you're a guy, you cannot have enough RAM. BILL GATES currently has over 743 billion "megs" of RAM, and he still routinely feels the need to stuff a ZUCCHINI in his UNDERWEAR.

You should use the preceding terms whenever you have to "interface" with computer experts. For example, if you're purchasing a new computer, you want to use as many of these terms as possible, so that store personnel will realize that they're dealing with a person who has a high level of technical expertise: