CompuServe Thread

'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