HAL

This summer at my working place

I discovered something that made me lose face,

An intelligence possibly from outer-space



Soon after my job at ERDEC began

We noticed problems with our LAN

Mysterious troubles in an office-wide span.



The X-Terminals were broken

As if by some token

Of an alien discipline



The color printer was possessed

The HP lasers were a mess

The problem we could only guess.



The file server was always down

We noticed with a frown

As if our problems just to crown.



Netscape ceased in working fast

The fonts we needed would not last

And out the core dumps we did cast.



Joe and Vince, under whose watch

An evilness managed to botch

The Tektronix with an evil splotch.



These two brave guys

Were able to devise

A way to break the alien's disguise.



The prescence's name was HAL

He is not a real great pal;

He really lowered our group's morale.



Alien or program,

Remnant or diagram,

Or just an unearthly sham



He must be removed

As been approved

Before one of us is accused



Of destroying the computers many

Where we could not find any

Problems worth a penny.



We read the Tektronix docs

There, clever as a fox,

Hidden by many blocks



An automated fax named HAL

In this locale

We must corral



And bring him to an end.

So to defend

We did depend



On programs, quite a few.

With Samba true

And Showcase too



We kept Joe's icons from a fate

Of tremendous weight

As we waited for Hal to disintegrate



The Tektronix works

With fewer quirks

And now there are pentiums and other perks.



So weakened in scads

By the three brave lads,

HAL hibernates in the Hitachi digitized pads.....



                   THE END?

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