The Story of the TeleTefila Supercomputer

From our announcement on December 23, 2020:

As some of you know, the old TeleTefila “Model T” computer was a hand-cranked machine that served us well for many years. Recently, however, the crank broke. Do you how much a genuine Ford computer crank costs these days? Don’t ask. So we gave in and bought a spiffy new diesel-powered CyberPowerPC gaming computer (really) from B&H.

The TeleTefila gnomes were eager to start playing Pong on it, but first we had to get a new monitor and that put us back a few more days. But finally all the new hardware was here at TeleTefila World Headquarters. Our thanks go to My Friend Bill and the TT Tech Dept (Jacob) for their patience and sage tech advice, and to our Comptroller (Iris) for approving the purchase order. Couldn’t have done it without you guys!

Next came moving more than one million files (no exaggeration) from the old computer to the new. To accomplish the task, we set up a bucket brigade of gnomes between the two computers. At one end, Ethelred would pry a file out of the old machine using a short crow bar. The file would be handed from one gnome to another until it reached Percival, who would gently tap it into place on the new computer, using a rubber mallet.

Anyway, we’re thrilled to finally be back online.

Computer news from TeleTefila World Headquarters (sent December 30, 2020)

We’re continuing work on configuring the scores of programs we depend on here at the HQ. Percival already has a case of carpel tunnel from madly researching the minutia of the Windows registry hive, hidden system files, and REGEDIT. Some of the web pages he has found seem to be written in Old Church Slavonic. After Percival figures out what to do, Ethelred then has to apply it to the TT mainframe, using a soldering pencil. Let me tell you, the whole office stinks of burning flux. And what has Nos been doing while the gnomes are working their fingers to the bone? He keeps them fed with donuts and coffee, of course.

From our email of January 18, 2021

Ethelred and Percival, two of our staff gnomes, have been struggling overtime to fix the search feature in our email program (technically an MUA – mail user agent). They finally gave up and headed off for a well-deserved rest. Into the breach stepped our backup gnomes, Mandy Sparkledust and Báthory. They looked the situation over, and declared “There’s a work-around that requires only ONE extra keystroke and provides all the functionality that you want.” So that’s what we’re doing. As a reward, they each received an extra ration of Grenadine syrup with their dinner.

[Editor's note: Mandy has pointed out that she is not a gnome, but rather a unicorn and is proud to be descended from a long line of unicorns from the Indian subcontinent. We regret the misgnomer.]