On the CCTALK mailing list, I found myself in the unusual position of defending some of the design decisions that went into the original IBM Personal Computer (PC), which was introduced in August 1981 and with which all modern PCs are still largely compatible. At the end of the posting, I wrote:
[Geez, I can't believe I'm defending the engineers that developed the PC. Now I feel like I need to take a shower.]
Grumpy ol’ Fred replied:
Not gonna be enough.
It’s gonna take a lot of Jif and naval jelly
I’m not sure where and how the Jif and naval jelly need to be applied, but maybe it’s one of those things I don’t want to know.
And no, I don’t really think the designers were scoundrels. It’s from an H.L. Mencken quote, used for hyperbole.
Compile the Linux Kernel 12 times and write 3 AWK scripts and you will be forgiven