Flash back a few decades, when the IT group in this big corporation is in the process of replacing its aging Prime minicomputer with an IBM System/38. Pilot fish is the day-shift operator, and he and the night-shift operator have a friendly rivalry.

As a prank, fish uses the Prime scripting language to create a perfect copy of the IBM’s operator console screen. Then he makes it his counterpart’s default screen so he’ll think he has somehow signed onto the wrong computer. To preserve the fiction, fish adds some real functionality. If the night guy enters the print-status command, for example, it will show him all the printers on the Prime system, and if he selects one printer, it will list all the jobs in its queue.

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