The MISfortune 500
Each January, the staff of MISinformation nominates the 500 companies whose achievements ranked them most dubious. This year, the list fell short by some 495.  

Adobe Systems, Inc., Mountain View, California.
1988 was the year Adobe Systems, Inc. entered the entertainment business. Building on revenues from their successful Adobe Illustrator, they spun-off a television production company. Their first and last effort was a half-hour sitcom called Adobe Gillis. "Gillis was a graphic artist," an anonymous Adobe spokesman said. "He was the straight man to Maynard G. Krebs. Maynard was font-crazy. We don't understand what went wrong. It was a great idea."  

No truth to the rumor Adobe has a sci-fi summer replacement in production for ABC: Battlestar Helvetica.  

Parker Brothers., Salem, Massachusetts.
Probably the most esoteric (and unsuccessful) entry in the 1988 hardware add-on category was Parker Brothers' Ouija Board. Originally developed to delve deep into the microprocessor to uncover the origins of system glitches on a nether level, the 13-MHz Ouija Board was quickly withdrawn from the market because of what one Parker brother called "unexplained problems."  

"There were odd power-supply drains, for one thing," Ray, Jr. said.  

A member of the MISinformation staff substantiated the weirdness. "I woke up one morning after installing the board on my Mac II," assistant editor Cliff Hangar said. "The mouse cord was wrapped around my cat's throat strangling him. And if that wasn't enough, I was downloading a MacPaint of Morgan Fairchild from a BBS. When I unstuffed the file, it was my dead grandmother. That board is ominous, I'll take my chances with a virus any day."  

Kraft, Inc., Chicago, Illinois.
While going down for the third time in a hostile corporate takeover attempt last year, Kraft introduced its only new product aimed at the lucrative computer industry: The Kraftmatic adjustable bed. Not bad for a company who heretofore gave us nothing but cheese that was labeled, "Best if eaten by July 1961" and mayonnaise that was labeled, "Best if not eaten."  

Originally developed for computer room security guards, the bed gained enough popularity with computer operations personnel to force management to exercise their money-back guarantee option. When last heard from, Kraft had rewritten their 401-k plan to include the flop in their employee retirement benefits.  

Swatch, New York City, New York.
Back in 1983, Seiko pioneered the wrist television to an unreceptive consumer audience. Undaunted by that purported $9.7 million loss, Swatch released their first entry into the computer market, a $1600 wrist computer, last year. Unfortunately, this ultimate portable was everything but useful. With 16 bytes of memory, no external storage device and a screen resolution of 2x4 pixels, the Swatch-16 was doomed from its inception. A Swatch spokesman attributed the computer's failure to the lack of earth tone colors available for wrist-bands.  

Govida Chocolates, Inc., Hershey, Pennsylvania.
While everyone else was hawking generic-looking chocolate computers and diskettes, Godiva, loyal to its truffle-nibbling snooties, marketed exotic Royal-Dutch-Almond-Mocha-Semi-Sweet chocolate Mac II's, IBM PS/2 Model 80's and CD-ROM disks. Alas, the hardware had a longer shelf-life than the chocolates and Godiva's Computer Chocolates wore like burlap on, well, Godiva.  

10 Seconds With Pee Cee Herman MISinfo:   Pee Cee, I understand you're only a 4.77 MHz clone. Pee Cee:   I know you are, but what am I!

My 2 Cents
By: John Vdorak
   I don't know what it is about us computer-types.
   During the holidays I had a bigger painted-on smile than Bozo the Clown (happy hex 1E, by the way, Boz). I mean, every one of my relatives found a different computer trifle to give me, and I had to act appreciative.  

   "Mom, thanks. What is it?"
   "It's a walnut with eyes, sitting next to a computer terminal. Computer nut. Get it? Cute, huh?"
   "Y'know I really do feel sorry for that Chippewa tribe if this is the best they can do."
   "And Aunt Marlene, where did you ever find an accelerator board soap-on-a-rope?"
   "You like it John? I mean, if you don't."
   "No, it's great. I, uh, can hardly wait to get dirty."
   If lightning would have struck me for lying it would have created a power surge that could fry half the PCs in Chicago.
   "Uncle Henry, you shouldn't have."
   "Well, I know you work with computers and...I thought you'd get a kick out of it. It's a Gummie-Disk."
   Put that in your drive and see if it improves access time.  

   I'd like to give an award for the most inane computer gift; that reward would be something along the lines of some type of self-detonating device. I guess the reason I'm so furious about it is that there's so many good gifts out there for us computer nuts. Call me radical, but I for one would prefer a nice sweater to a box of blank floppies any day. You can't tell friends and relatives that.  

   "What, more?"
   "You didn't think your grandmother would forget you, did ya? I know you have a computer at home so I got you this little magnet to stick on it."
   "'I heart computers.' Gee, and all I got you were these fuzzy dice to hang from your walker. Gram, I'll think of you every time I see that permanent distortion your magnet'll leave on my screen."  

Is This Protocol?
Warner Brothers announced last week that it would re-edit its classic "Cool Hand Luke" into a more contemporary version of the man vs. man vs. himself struggle.  

In Luke '89, Paul Newman plays a similar character, but instead of doing time in an Alabama hard-time prison, he plays a contract programmer for a Southern California bank. Warner Brothers officials felt the character was similar enough to warrant not even a change in wardrobe.  

Strother Martin plays a network control technician and in the midst of trouble-shooting a front-end processor delivers the classic line, "What we've got here ... is failure to communicate."