locked in bill's dungeon 30 august, 2001 by johnmichael patrick monty monteith

I was on my typical drive home from work on I-405 heading to Kirkland when I was looking out into the sky and saw a stream of bright lights blanketing the sky. In most cities one might think it came from a UFO, or perhaps a NASA experiment gone wrong, but here in the suburbs of Seattle it could only be one thing. A Microsoft operating system roll-out party. As I pondered how it was that Bill forgot to send me an invitation, suddenly a vehicle screamed by me in the emergency lane and nearly took out the front of my little Honda. It was a Ford Explorer with copies of Microsoft Office 2000 piled high inside.

I was so steamed that he almost hit me that I took it upon myself to follow him. As we started East on I-90 I reached a moment of confusion as I noticed it was an Eddie Baurer edition Ford Explorer. One often will find Ford Explorers filled with Microsoft software in the Seattle area. Just not Eddie Baurer Limited Editions. The ugly lime green one, no less. Clearly the only people in the Seattle area driving these two-tone monstrosities were current or former Microsoft employees. But why would one of Bill's Borg be hauling around copies of Office 2000? Sure, most people in the world could find some logical explanation for this. But not me. No. The only excuses I could think of were not pretty. Not pretty at all. Clearly foul play must be involved.

It came as little surprise that we drove right on to Microsoft headquarters and stopped in a packed car park. I watched from my spot as this short man with large rimmed glasses grabbed as many copies of software out of the back of his Explorer as he could carry, and then press the button on his remote to lock his vehicle. I quietly followed him into the crowd of Microsoft employees on a large front lawn boozing up and making merry. We had walked into the middle of the Windows XP roll-out party, although the short geeky dude in glasses was not stopping to try a plastic cup of bubbly. I managed to grab a glass or two during the chase for myself, however.

As I finished my last cup full we had finished walking past all of the people and the party and were walking through some woods. Well, if a collection of trees in the middle of the Microsoft campus could be called woods, that is. After a hundred yards of walking, in the middle of the Microsoft Forest, we came upon a large free-standing Windows XP sign with a digital clock counting the days to release on the left. While these signs were all over the Redmond campus to remind the clan of when the latest bible-ala-Microsoft would hit the streets, it seemed quite out of place in the middle of Software-Central-Park. I could only think it would serve as some sort of early-warning system for employees trying to escape campus on sunny days.

The Office 2000 delivery dude walked behind the sign, as I sat behind a tree in a cloak of shadows watching and waiting. After a few minutes, I thought he might just be trying to hide from me. Getting sick of the suspense, I quietly walked up and took a peek behind the sign. The dork was not there. Gone. Vanished. I had heard of Novell employees evaporating into thin air before, but never Microsoft. This was quite peculiar.

I searched for a more realistic explanation, and found a bizarre button hidden underneath the Microsoft sign. I pressed it and suddenly a trap door opened with a walkway to a hidden world below. Being the curious fellow I am, I walked down the old masonry stairs to the world below as the door above closed behind me. The space ahead revealed a dimly lit hallway, but lit by some strange futuristic lighting. The Tower of London meets Deep Space Nine.

Down the long hallways there were dozens of doors that opened to small rooms. The spaces behind the heavy wooden doors were dark and had various old computers setup inside. One room had a desk with an Amiga 1000 setup. The next an Atari 520ST. The next a Mac SE/30. Another with a Timex Sinclair. A dungeon of old out-of-date computer systems underneath Microsoft's Remond campus. Who would believe this? I was seeing it with my own eyes, and I could hardly believe it myself.

As I went further down the hallway I could hear a grown man screaming in agony. The sound stood the hair up on my neck as it bounced off each wall and permeated the long hallway. I started to run down the medieval chute to find where the sound was coming from, and eventually I came upon the room. It was locked from the outside, but a small slot was open to reveal the vile happenings inside. Two men were standing on either side of this poor soul sitting in a chair receiving the most heinous torture ever inflicted upon a person. All of those copies of Microsoft Office 2000 that the geek was carrying .. (I can barely type the words.) The God-forsaken individual was being forced to install copy after copy of Office 2000 on what looked to be a 90 MHz Pentium running Windows 98. How anyone could live through such torture is a mystery. It is likely he would reach triple digits in age before finding double digits in installations, yet there were still dozens more in the yuppie SUV I followed. I winced at the agonizing thought.

The man screamed from the inside, "Oh, save me! If I see one more completion window that shows complete and then starts completely over again, I might die!"

Suddenly a voice bellows behind me, "Enjoying the show?"

Startled, but thinking he might not be able to discern me from the other Microsoft employees, I played along, "It sure is entertaining."

"Yes.. Well, he had it coming. All he had to do was be in a couple of Windows XP commercials. But, no .. He had to play hardball."

"Well, it seems like a suitable punishment."

He responds, "It does."

"Out of curiosity, why do you have so many copies of Office 2000. Why not just have him install the same one over and over again?"

"Oh, well, Office 2000 SR-1 has that license authentication scheme, and it won't allow us to install it on that machine more than twice without failing. So, we had to go round up every remaining copy of Office 2000 in the Seattle area. It takes him approximately two grueling hours for each installation." He was clearly quite proud of this.

"Is that a ninety mhz Pentium?"

"Sixty MHz, with sixteen megs of RAM."

"Wow. That truly is torture.. Who came up with this one?"

"Straight from the boss. Big Bill does not like to be turned down by anyone", he said with a wry smile.

I chuckled and replied, "Well, I bet Bill would love to get a couple folks from the Justice Department down into these rooms, huh?" The guard in Microsoft Kaki's was not laughing. I suddenly realized that I had stupidly over-played my hand.

"Why do you think the government is suddenly on our side?" he said while peering at me.

"Oh. Right. I forgot", trying to sneak myself out of the mess I made.

The guard pulled a two-tone Maglite out of his back pocket and shined it at my face. "You didn't forget. You didn't know." He unlocks the door where the torture was taking place and threw me to the floor inside. The guards inside the room smile and look down on me as the flashlight is shining on my face.

One of the other guards says, "His skin isn't nearly pasty white enough. This isn't a Microsoft employee. Where did he come from?"

"I found him in the hallway peering in on our torture. Now we'll have to find a new one for him."

The last guard giggles at the thought, "Ooh, ooh, ooh.. Me. Let me decide the torture!"

The other one starts jumping up as though he has to go to the bathroom, "No, no .. It's my turn .. Let me think of this one! Pleeease!"

The guard that discovered me pipes in, "No. This time the torture will be all mine. This non-believer will be paying for his curiosity with his LIFE."

I couldn't help but respond, "My Life? Are you going to make me install copies of Windows XP, then?"

"Quiet!", he shouts back at me. "You will be forced to build form entry tables for Microsoft Word templates in Office Visual Basic!"

"Okay, but you know if you have a copy of WordPerfect for Windows that feature is built in."

"Blasphemy! How dare you say things like that on our holy grounds?"

I crawled closer to the floor, "Sorry."

"For that outburst you will be forced to perform this outrageous programming task on the original version of Microsoft Word for Windows."

The other two guards stepped back as they let out under their breath, "Ewwwww."

"Well, even the original version of WordPerfect for Windows still had that form feature built in." I then realized I really should have kept quiet.

"He said it again! Did you hear him?"

The other guards shout back, "Yes! We heard! Blasphemy! Blasphemy!"

The guard issuing the punishment took a deep breath before speaking. "That final outbreak will make your death far more slow and torturous. Upon further analysis of your demon-possessed mind, we will force you to perform this deadly task in -", as the other guards hung on his every word, "the Windows 3.1 dungeon!"

The other guards start clapping at the sounds, "Oh, glorious! What a lovely punishment! You truly have outdone yourself this time."

"Thank you. Thank you very much", he says as he takes a bow. Suddenly he slap his hands together, "Now, guards - take him away!"

Each guard grabbed me by either arm, and lifted me in the air. Then they started dragging me out of the room, as the already-tortured gentleman inside screams at the top of his lungs. Just as we were about to reach the doorway to leave the room a gentleman dressed in all black and wearing glasses steps in front of the doorway.

"Monty. What are you doing here?"

A smile came on my face when I realized I might be saved after all. "Bill! It is good to see you."

"Good to see you, too."

I could not help but comment immediately, "Isn't that a new look for you Bill? All black? Looks good."

"Thank you. Whenever I come down to our humble little dungeons I like to dress for the occasion. Still, I never expected to see you here."

The guard that condemned me to death by Windows 3.1 then spoke up, "I found him in the hallway looking in on Mr. Parks."

"Is this true, Monty?"

"Well, I was following a gentleman carrying lots of boxes of Office 2000. I thought perhaps they were Chinese pirated versions, so I had to follow him to stop the illegal activity. And, well, he led me here."

"See, guards.. Monty is truly an inspiration to all Microsoft employees. We should all learn by his example. Perhaps we should send you to China to hunt some of these people down?"

"I really would prefer not."

"Yes, well .. A thought for the future perhaps. Guards .. Please free him." At this the guards let me go.

"Well, thanks, Bill. Now, it looks like there is nothing left for me here, so if you don't mind, I will just be going", and with that started heading for the door.

Bill grabbed my arm, "Not so quick, Monty. I actually could use your help here. Didn't you used to own a Commodore 128?"

"Yes. A 128D, as a matter of fact."

The tortured gentleman suddenly stopped screaming and turned to me. "You had a 128 D? Oh, how I wish I had one of those. I have just a plain old Commodore 128."

I smiled, "Yes, well the built in 1571 double sided floppy, and a detachable keyboard …"

"Yeah, and it has sixteen K of video RAM so you can display six-forty by two hundred resolution. Oh, what a great computer. Do you still have it?"

"I am afraid I don't."

Bill chimed in on the conversation, "See, maybe you can convince him. What happened is a few months ago I came up with this incredible idea to find someone in America that had never used the Internet for anything. We spent tens of millions of dollars searching everywhere for a person in this country that had not used the Internet for email, or web surfing, or sending a virus to a friend, and we could not find anyone. Then a couple weeks ago we found the last person to ever use the Internet. Rick Parks."

"That's me", the tortured guy said.

I couldn't believe it. "Hey, wait. Aren't you the guy that did all of those drawings on the Amiga and other Commodore computers?"

"Yup, that's me."

"And you have never used the Internet?"

"No, why should I? I just like using these great Commodore computers. I just like spending my time drawing on my Koala Pad on my Commodore 128 and my mouse on my Amiga 500."

"Fair enough."

Bill was obviously aggravated. "No! Not fair enough! We wanted to find him so that we could have the last Internet user in the country be a spokesperson for Windows XP. That way we can show the world that even the last person in the country to use the Internet loves using Windows XP!"

"So, Rick, why won't you do it?"

"I don't do Windows", he said matter-of-factly.

"But, then you won't have to go through this torture. Isn't that worth it?"

"They can't make me do Windows! They can't make me use the Internet! I just want to draw on my Commodore computers and be left alone!"

"Well, Bill - if he says he doesn't want to use your products, what can you do?"

Bill snarls, "Torture him some more, that's what!" Rick screamed. "Monty, surely you can convince Rick to change his Commodore ways. For God sake, he is worse than a Mac Evangalista!"

I shook my head, "No, Bill, I really can't. If he does not want to use your software, he will likely never touch the stuff."

"Well, I can't just lose those tens of millions with nothing to show for it."

"I have an idea. Why don't you use him as a Microsoft attraction for your employees? Then the tens of millions wouldn't be a completely loss."

Bill looked at me puzzled, "What do you mean?"

"Come on. I'll show you." With that I grabbed Rick and Bill and we walked down the long hallway with the guards following close behind. We walked up the stairs, out the secret hatch, waltzed through the woods, and then headed back to the party.

"Monty, I am not certain this is the best idea. What do you have in mind?"

"Trust me, Bill." We then walked into the middle of the Windows XP party where all of the Microsoft employees were enjoying the festivities. I then shouted out to get everyone's attention, "Hello everyone! I have an announcement to make! I have here - right next to me - a gentleman by the name of Rick Parks. He is the only person in America to never have used the Internet!"

Suddenly screams of delight everywhere, and flashes from cameras start going off as though we were the biggest celebrities in the world. Microsoft employees came rushing up to us, all to touch the person that has never used the Internet. Voices everywhere all talking to Rick at the same time, "Oh, I am so honored to meet you", "You've never visited Amazon?", "Can I get a picture with you to send to my family" .. Suddenly he was the most popular person in the world, and Bill and I were climbing out of the crowd as his employees engulfed the once-tortured Mr. Parks.

"Wow, Monty. I had no idea how much my employees would love this man."

"He is a real celebrity." We stood there and watched as employee after employee had their picture taken with him. Postcards to send to family, and keep-sakes for on the wall of their cubicles while typing code all day long. Happy Microsoft employees as far as the eye could see.

"Great for morale."

"Sure is. Worth a few million, wouldn't you say?"

"No. This does not help me get someone to be the spokesperson for Windows XP. What am I to do, Monty?"

"I really don't know."

"Clearly someone is going to need to pay for this, Monty. I would hate for that person to be you."

Bill was clearly not going to let me off until I found a solution. I had no interest in spending time programming visual basic on Windows 3.1. Suddenly a thought occurred to me. "Well, there may still be a way to talk him into it."

"Really? What do you have in mind?"

At this point I turned to the guards that once had Rick as a prisoner. "Boys, would you please go retrieve Mr. Parks from the crowd and bring him this way?"

As he was pulled away from the crowd the cameras were still flashing, and Microsoft employees all kept reaching out their hands to touch, even just once, the man that had never used the Internet before. Rick seemed to be enjoying his celebrity status and was smiling and reaching out to the masses that were reaching for him. Finally the guards and Rick reached where Bill and I were standing.

"You're quite a hit, Rick."

"Yeah. These people love me. All because I don't use the Internet. Isn't that great?"

Bill grunted.

I knew I needed to convince Rick that using the Internet was a good thing, but not just to save me from torture. If there was no solution, Bill would be forever in a funk. The last time Bill was in a funk was when he came up with the idea for Microsoft Bob, and I simply could not allow such a sorry piece of programming to be created again.

I took a deep breath, and turned to Rick. "What if I told you that on the Internet there are people sharing information about Commodore 64's, 128's, and Amiga's? Tons of information about Commodore computers."

He was genuinely shocked. "Really?"

"Yes. There are thousands of people out there still using these computers, and sharing knowledge, and software. Even sharing YOUR pictures."

"No!"

"Yes! They share ideas, and go back and use their old Commodore's to build even better things. There are still millions of these Commodore's in use to this very day, all thanks to the Internet."

His eyes opened wider than they ever have. "Really? And I could just use Windows XP and then I could talk to all of these people and share some new pictures I made?"

"Yup."

"And we could talk all day long about Commodore stuff?"

"You bet. But, it gets even better. If you agree to help Bill out with his XP marketing, I'll show you how to log into Ebay and you can buy your very own Commodore 128D."

"Really?! My very own? With a Koala Pad?"

"Yes. You can even buy a new Koala Pad."

"Wow! This is incredible!" At this Rick turns to Bill and shakes his hand, "Well, Mr. Gates, I would be happy to help you with your Windows problem. This Internet do-hickie sounds like that greatest thing ever!"

"Thank you, Rick. Now, feel free to go back to the party with my employees and get some more pictures taken. Then rest up tonight. First thing tomorrow we can introduce you to Windows XP and the Internet."

Rick was elated. "Gee, thank you Mr. Gates! This is great!" And with this the guards and Rick headed back to the party for some fun.

Bill turned to me, "Well, I just don't know how to thank you, Monty. You have done it again."

"Hey, I do what I can. Of course, you realize that after Rick gets on the Internet and starts talking to people he will realize he can set up his old Commodore computers to browse the Web and get email."

"Impossible!", Bill exclaimed.

"Even a Commodore 64 can be set up for web browsing. And Amiga's were browsing the web before most Windows systems."

"No! Well, we won't worry about that. As long as he does not discover that until after the XP roll-out, we'll be just fine."

I looked out at Rick once again. Still the celebrity. Still getting his picture taken with hundreds of Microsoft employees. It was so silly I almost burst out laughing. "Well, I better be headed home. Thanks for an interesting evening, Bill."

"Not a problem, Monty. And, hey - for being such a big help, I'll be sure to get that half-off coupon for Windows XP your way after the release."

"As always, Bill, you're all heart."

With that I got in my Honda and made the short drive to Kirkland. I could not wait to get home and write about my time in the Microsoft Dungeon. Every word of it the truth. Truly. Just ask Bill.