For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for February 24, 2025

I heard a guy once who was loudly ranting that new programs were purposely developed by computer makers to be unrunnable on older, weaker computers, and that the entire and only purpose of new programs was to require people to buy a newer computer. He was adamant that there ought to be a law that all programs be usable on any old computer.

…and gets back after your body does.

Elly looks amazingly like Michael in the last panel.

By the time you get there, your mind has had 3 fruity rum drinks with a paper umbrella.

Fisher Price has made toy computers since the 80s

I never had a problem with going, just with coming back.

Once you are on vacation the only thing on your mind will be the return to work.

And the anticipation lasts longer than the vacation.

So to anyone who was working with computers in the mid-nineties (while I only played games on them), I gotta ask: Is that something a person might actually say? “I’ve lost the file on adventure novels, classic”? As in, did people lose files?

It’s call “Vacation mode”. Your brain goes on vacation a week or so before your actual vacation and sometimes stays a week or two after it’s over. Hoppen’s to me all of the time.

I was a programmer for a company that was a software vendor for insurance. I approached my boss and asked why don’t we make the software more user friendly. He said if we did that we wouldn’t have to keep “improving” it and lose money. I also got in trouble for actually helping the client when they called me. I was supposed to tell them to go to their contact with the company and pay extra for the privilege of my help.

There are some says it seems machines are out to get you. My printer (fairly new) has been having a tantrum.

I can’t believe how fast April has grown up!

Just yesterday I made a comment that April will turn 5 years old in a few weeks.

Yet today, April looks like she is at least 16 or 17 years old here!

That’s just like traveling. It seems to take forever to get to your destination but the return trip takes no time at all.

Got that right, Moira. Been there and done that.

Mind over wattsa matta.

I love that comment Moira made about buying a computer from Fisher Price.

Truth.

Cause that’s her son.

In the old computer world when those big reels of magnetic tapes were high-tech, the last thing written on a tape, after all the data, was an End of Tape mark. That way, when the tape was read back in, the system could detect where the data stopped. Since it was almost never near the actual physical end of the tape, it was called a Logical End-of-Tape.

Sometimes in the afternoon on a Friday I would reach a Logical End-of-Week.

The early versions of a personal computer, the Commodore 64 and 128, were sold at Toys ’R Us

Those early computers were anything but user friendly. They ran on DOS. The horror!

Well it is Five o clock somewhere.

Moira sure has found a nice way to call out Elly for doing shoddy work while on the clock.

I love the “Made by Fisher Price” comment Moira made. This strip was a long time ago

Don’t worry Elly, April is almost 5 now, so she should be able to help you with the computer soon.

Panel 2 is a keeper in its own right! I have known plenty of people who would have been better served by a Fisher Price computer.

I still struggle with a calculator.

I’m lucky if I can find the “ON” switch

Gee, and to think these will be Facebook grandmas in a few years ! ;-)

Doesn’t Fisher Price make a kid computer now?

I go into vacation mode about 2 weeks before I leave. I’m pretty much useless at work the week before.

“I’m not buying a computer until….”. Amazing how that line (which many of us lived through in some shape or form) sounds so archaic now.