=1 "When the comps took over"
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When the comps took over
The Religious Observer, the biggest non-denominational daily in the city, had acquired a computer for its layout work, composition and printing. You know those modern things where you feed in the news on the tenth floor, and on the ground floor the printed and folded newspaper comes out at the rate of two million copies in half an hour. It was the night before ‘D’ day, and the chief programmer and systems manager sat at his desk looking over the last arrangements he had made for the programming of the computer. Anxiously he asked himself for the hundredth time if he hadn’t forgotten…. something….
Suddenly the building started to hum; the big rotary presses were rolling out the pages. When the first copies were folded and sent up to the editors, programmers, copywriters and reporters, the chief editor glanced at the headlines. He paled and then became very red. A lightning heart attack just missed taking his breath away forever. He seized his red telephone and called the press.
“Stop the presses!”
“We can’t,” was the answer. “All the buttons are on your desk.”
The editor-in-chief searched in vain for the stop button. The newspaper before him proclaimed in Gill 144-point type: PENTAGON TO REORGANIZE THE HEAVENLY HOSTS, and in another headline: New air carrier christened BEEZLEBUB by First Lady.
Something was terribly wrong! He turned to the back page. A big advertisement read: Infernal spirits for sale, 110 proof 10 percent discount. And another demanded: Stand up for Jesus with Glorified Brand shoes. Another advertisement suggested: Use Royal Oil for everlasting fires and still another offered: Spectres for sale: sprites, shadows, wraiths, banshees and spooks.
“Stop it!” cried the chief again. “Blow the fuses! Do something, anything!”
“What has happened?” yelled the publisher into the intercom.
THE WORLD MADE FLESH, shouted a headline in 72-point Baskerville, and continued in 34-point Plantin: Eat more meat. And another one, in Garamond 24-point: United States foreign aid bill trimmed another hundred million dollars by the First Cause, Author of all things. And a full-page advertisement announced: On the Lord’s day: big game in the Pandemonium Stadium, Goblins vs. Hobgoblins.
“It sounds like madness,” said the assistant programmer, “but there seems to be a method in it.”
For anglers,
the computer proclaimed,
the worm that never dies.
“There must be some terrible misunderstanding,” exclaimed another programmer helplessly.
“All I did was to direct the computer to use a Christian language,” said the systems manager.
For elegant modern living use Demonex.
Don’t miss the late show: ‘Satan preaching the Bible’ /Anti-Bible society.
“Then why does it speak so much of demons?”
“It was programmed to be against them.”
Use HALLELUJAH Washing Machines for unclean spirits.
“From what world does this come?” asked the systems manager anxiously as he read:
Satyrs unfair to elf-children,
and then:
Walter of the Banshees wins title from Ted Nixon of the Water Sprites.
“All I did,” said the number two programmer, “was to tell it that pagan vocabulary was permitted and was preferable to athiestic statements, because I was afraid it would change the days of the week in order to christianise their names.”
LET THE BANKS OF NEW JERUSALEM PROTECT YOUR HEAVENLY INVESTMENT.
There was another article headed:
The bottomless pit measured by scientists,
which nobody had time to read because right beside it was the announcement:
The Rivers of Hell in spate: Styx, Acharon, Lethe!
Below that was a half-page advertisement:
United Elysian Life-after-death Insurance Company,
and on the next page:
Quality Used Cars: Fiery Chariots,
which promised
Immediate Deviltry.
There was a small advertisement below it:
Exchange: changeling against werewolf.
Then came a big one again in 72-point Gothic:
Abode of the blessed: To rent, immediately, monthly payments: $30 in advance. Heaven of Heavens Realtors, Inc.
After that a number of small items: The Bride of the Lamb: After dinner show. Opens 10 P.M. Bar Restaurant: The Church Fathers.
Movie: 33 reels, full-length film, 3 hours: The Vale of Tears. Starring A. Moloch and C. Mammon, produced by the Almighty and Co.
Try The Comforter in adversity. Agency for the Holy Land, telephone 3937.
“We have to find out what went wrong”, said the chief editor when the presses finally ran out of paper and stopped. “He must have taken too literally the order, ‘no athiestic statements’.”
“What I don’t understand is the deformation of the advertisements,” said one programmer. “The political news, I can understand.” And he pointed out:
Prime Minister at an infernal meeting with the chief devil said: ‘Truly I say unto you, only fallen angels can give a real uplift to a soul’.
“I wonder what he really said,” muttered the second programmer.
“He doesn’t have to say, ‘Truly I say unto you,’ each time somebody starts talking,” countered the chief editor.
"And he doesn’t have to say that it was the Lord Shabaoth who made ‘King Solomon’ come in last in the fifth Belmonte Race on last Lord’s Day,” added the assistant editor, “I put five bucks on ‘King Solomon’!”
“Beautiful layout even if I have to say it myself,” remarked the third programmer loudly. “Look here:
Great Careers Correspondence School for Ministering Sprits, Invisible helpers: seraphim, cherubim, angels, archangels, with guaranteed employment at the end of the course. Principal: St. Michael.”
Another school promised to teach fundamentalist electronics in ten easy lessons to train specialists in devil worship and witchcraft. And another beautiful layout advertised Property for sale: hallowed grounds, unearthly premises, Detached villas in the infernal regions, and a few flats in Limbo. /Gehenna Ltd.” Then came: The Bread of Life, vitamin-enriched.
Use BAALTOX as a devilcide, counselled another advertiser. And a big one: Bank with United Bank of the Rulers of Darkness. Head Office: Black Mass Building.
A social evening for wood nymphs was organized by the “Help for Nymphs” Society in the social section.
“And all I did,” sighed the systems manager, “was to instruct the computer to use a Christian language!”
And just at that moment the systems manager awakened.