Christmas
'Twas the night before Christmas And all through the house Not a creature was
stirring 'cept me and my mouse.
The stockings were hung By the printer with care While the data base hummed
Making sure all was there.
The children were nestled All snug in their beds, While visions of
micro-sprites Danced in their heads.
And Ma, trying to figure How to use .bmap, Had fallen asleep for a long winters
nap.
When out of the Amiga There rose such a clatter I thought for a while 'Twas the
disk drive a chatter.
I clicked open a window From a strange new icon, And pulled down a menu And
turned the modem on.
When what to my Wondering eyes delights But a fast moving object And eight tiny
sprites.
The disk drive was So lively and quick, I knew in a moment It must be St. Nick.
More rapid than bobs Across the screen they came, And he flickered and cycled
And called them by name: Now, Pixel! Now, Rastport! Now, ClipBit and Blitter!
On, Byte! On, Bit! On Vsprite and Dither!
Off of the disk To the RAM with it all. Now GOSUB! GOSUB! GOSUB all!
As I pulled down a new menu And looked around, Out of the modem St. Nick came
with a bound.
He was dressed all in chips From his boot to interface, And his clothes were
all covered With flickers of interlace.
A bundle of software Flung over his back. He looked like a hacker Just opening
his pack.
He spoke not a word But went straight to his task, And filled all the buffers
But that wasn't the last-
He added two megs And reset the stack Then gleefully pulled 1.2 From his sack.
He sprang to the keyboard And to his sprites gave a whistle. And away they all
flew With the flash of a pixel.
But I heard him exclaim As he scrolled out of sight, "Amiga Christmas to all,
And to all a good night."
With apologies to Clement Moore
and lots of help from my wife Muriel
Michael Fahrion
Cleveland Area-Amiga Users' Group
copyrighted but
freely distributable