By Bill Shein
February 20, 2015
It can’t be called “spring cleaning” when the temperature outside is minus 5 degrees, but last week I was reorganizing my basement and found a file box neatly labeled, “1989 Correspondence, A-L.”
Yes, I was once highly organized. Today? Not so much. More recent file boxes have labels like “Miscellaneous/Random Papers ‘n’ Junk ‘n’ Stuff, 2006-2013” and “Half-Eaten Sandwiches, 2001” and “Burn IMMEDIATELY if Audited.”
Leafing through that dusty, mildewed box, I found a copy of a fascinating, long-forgotten letter that I wrote to Microsoft’s Bill Gates. By then, he had earned notoriety and piles of money by creating MS-DOS and, some say, stealing the idea for the now-ubiquitous Windows operating system.
My letter to him is reproduced here, in full, without a single edit.
“Dear Mr. Gates,
“You don’t know me, but I am a college student in Massachusetts, where I help pay for school by selling IBM personal computers on campus. They run Microsoft Windows, as you know. They’re not as popular here as Apple computers, particularly that cute little Macintosh, but mark my words: Apple will soon fade into oblivion. Anyone dumb enough to invest $10,000 in Apple stock in 1989 will certainly look back in horror at their foolish mistake. Likely from their ramshackle, falling-down house.
“I’m writing to you about a future I imagine, and a business opportunity like no other. Why work with me? Read on, and prepare yourself for an idea that will have dollar signs flashing before your eyes, and therefore reflected noticeably in your somewhat comic, over-sized eyeglasses. (No offense!)
“Imagine, if you will, that what today we call a computer ‘monitor’ could be transformed from a heavy box containing a cathode-ray tube into a small, flat, glass-covered device that fits in your shirt pocket. And on that piece of glass, you could fully control the flow of full-color, television-like information with simple touches and taps!
“And then, imagine if your pocket-sized SCREEN (‘Somatic Cranial Reactive Energy Engagement Node’) could connect to other SCREENs around the world via a system of data transmission that combines phone lines, satellites, and television broadcast technology? In something I’ve dubbed the ‘Web-a-Tronic Internetwork’? My god, man, there’d be no reason to ever be without your SCREEN!
“Very quickly, SCREENs (of all sizes) would be everywhere, replacing personal computers, televisions, and maybe even books! They’ll be fun and addictive. Users might fill them with useful tools (a tip calculator!) and entertainment at least as good as Windows Solitaire and Minesweeper. Parents might use their SCREEN to distract restless babies and children into numb, compliant silence!
“So, in the ‘Good News for Bill Shein and Bill Gates’ department, people will become addicted to their SCREEN. Sometimes they’ll use it as a telephone, but it will be so much more. Television programs will air on the SCREEN. Users will send messages and (fully clothed!) pictures of themselves to each other’s SCREEN. They’ll keep it on their pillow at night, always within reach. Instead of interacting with people sitting (or sleeping) next to them, they’ll nearly always be focused on their hand-held SCREEN. Which they’ll buy from us!
“Our various SCREENs (I hope I’m not being presumptuous by saying ‘our’) will be everywhere: At the gas pump, on the treadmill at the gym, in the back of cabs, in bathrooms, in homes and offices, and most importantly, in everyone’s hand. In fact, addiction to hand-held SCREENs will become so widespread that within a generation or two, our hands will grow perfectly shaped skin flaps to hold them!
“Time formerly wasted resting our minds with idle daydreaming will instead be utilized in the consumption of information wrapped in advertising, ensuring profitable ‘value extraction’ from the SCREEN and its services. Cha-ching!
“Advertising on SCREENs will drive sales and consumption, which will pay for more advertising to drive more sales and consumption. SCREENs will help kill off local enterprises in favor of hyper-efficient global conglomerates with the size to sell, sell, sell! Someday there might be a SCREEN-based store as large as the Amazon rainforest! And available to everyone with just a tap – dare I say – on the Microsoft SCREEN 1.0.
“SCREENs will replace computer monitors, but get this: They’ll ‘monitor’ the activities and location of everyone who has one. Satellites will keep track of where our SCREENs are at all times, and therefore where we are at all times! What we’re doing. What ‘content’ we’re looking at. What information is sent from SCREEN to SCREEN through the Web-a-tronic Internetwork. That trove of data will be invaluable to marketers – and also to governments, but let’s not talk about that right now.
“Ready to learn more? Fax me a signed copy of the enclosed nondisclosure agreement and let’s remake the world. Sincerely, Bill Shein”
————-
Bill Shein has never owned Apple stock. He lives happily in a ramshackle, falling-down house.
(This column first appeared in The Berkshire Record newspaper on February 13, 2015.)