"'Twas the night before Christmas (computers)" joke

This was written by William Keaton, and originally published in "MIND", the newsletter of Indianapolis Mensa beck in 1993. It was reprinted in the national (American) "Mensa Bulletin" this month. And now, with the usual apologies to Clement Moore. ..' Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house
Not a computer was stirring, not even a mouse.
The hard drives were left on in each computer case
With a database for Santa, punched up in dBase.
The hackers were all snug asleep in their beds,
While visions of access codes danced in their heads.
And I with my PC and Ma with her Mac,
Had settled in for a long winter's nap.
When up from my modem there arose such a squeal,
I jumped from my bed and said, "What's the deal!!?!?"
To my computer I tore like a flash,
Hoping I wasn't suffering a Christmas Eve Crash.
A flashing green light on the front of my case,
Showed late-night activity (I hope not erase).
I turned on my monitor and what did appear,
But a. GIF old sleigh and eight blinking reindeer.
On a flashing bright icon I made a quick click,
And sure enough who appeared, but good old Saint Nick.
At 9600 baud the images they came,
As he loaded them up, he called them by name.
"Load Windows and Lotus, Prodigy and Quicken,
Add brand new DOS upgrades, and games for the children.
To the old root directory, to make room for them all,
How about a new hard drive, this one's all full!
As I watched as he worked through the database with care,
Checking the gift list we had left there.
He searched into his bag and pulled out with aplomb,
Bright shiny new discs for the new CD-ROM.
A brand new fax-modem (well, who asked for that!?!?),
Bundles of SIMMS, co-processors galore,
From one board to another, he filled up each hole.
And when he was finished, the tower cases were full,
With fun new software, just ready to install.
Then lining the cursor alongside of his nose,
Out of my new SVGA, up slowly he rose.
He jumped out of DOSSHELL, my soundblaster did sound,
As he TSR fell away,' til next Christmas comes around,
Then I heard him exclaim as he up-loaded from sight,
Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good byte!! For information about Mensa: