It Makes Sense, in its Own Crazy Way

This is another story from my time in the Computer Craziness, in Coastal Orange County, in the Eighties.

I call it the Computer Craziness - which is what it was, even though computers were just getting started. Their first effect on us, was to make us crazy. We knew they were something big - and we went crazy, trying make them like the mechanical machines, we were familiar with. Thirty years later, we are just beginning to understand them. But my story is about then - in another century.

I was working, as a technical writer, for a company that had its own resident genius - who was also crazy. The two traits can exist together comfortably - logical, and crazy. He came up with the idea for a product that would do everything, nearly - and would make the company rich and famous.

The company bought it - hook, line, and sinker. And even started bringing in some of its people for advance training, on a product that hadn't been built yet. In the next year, this guy must have aged ten years - trying to make his baby work. He couldn't, the company lost a lot of money, and some of the execs almost went to jail, for covering this up.

Meanwhile, another tech writer documented this effort - and the quote is from her "It makes sense, in its own crazy way."