Tune: Barrett's Privateers
Oh the year was 1995
How I wish I had a T-1 line!
When a memo came down and the boss said, “Get
this company up on the internet”
Chorus
God damn them all, I was told
The software would be “plug and go”
Put in the disk, and turned it on…
Now it's a smoking mess and I can't log on
I'm roadkill on the infobahn.
[Chorus]
Boss said the code was set to run
How I wish I had a T-1 line!
'Cept a few routines that I'd have to hack
In FORTRAN on our Univac
[Chorus]
The 1108 was a sickening sight
How I wish I had a T-1 line!
It had vacuum tubes and a punch card bin
And when you turned it on it made the lights go dim
[Chorus]
I looked at the code that we'd been sold
How I wish I had a T-1 line!
It took 86 meg and a CD drive
And it ran on Windows '95
[Chorus]
I found a path through ftp
How I wish I had a T-1 line!
But our modem was 2400K
And to download the file took two whole days
[Chorus]
At last I got the code compiled
How I wish I had a T-1 line!
But the screen went blank when I hit return
The mainframe caught fire and began to burn
[Chorus]
So here I sit as a sysadmin
How I wish I had a T-1 line!
I've seen more pain than a man deserves
Net time I'm calling CompuServe!
[Chorus]