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eBook Category: Science Fiction
eBook Description: "The Princesss and the P6" was my first fiction sale, to the computer industry magazine Datamation. I wrote it after surviving 20 months writing manuals for mainframe computers (aka as "dinosaurs") for Honeywell Information Systems, which I describe as the place where the Pointy Haired Boss had his first job. Read on to find out why.

eBook Publisher: Fictionwise.com, Published: Datamation Magazine, 1976
Fictionwise Release Date: June 2008

21 Reader Ratings: Great Good OK Poor

Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [145 KB], eReader (PDB) [25 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [11 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [11 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [73 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [82 KB], hiebook (KML) [56 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [41 KB], iSilo (PDB) [10 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [13 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [40 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [21 KB]
Words: 3340
Reading time: 9-13 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED

ONCE UPON A TIME in a place that the scientific among us might call an alternate universe but that the rest of us would rather not label at all, there was a princess named Dorinda with an interest in kingdom management. Her father, being an extremely sensible king, sent her off to the realworld to get a suitable education. She returned, some years later, with a B.S. in computer science and a Master's in business administration.

Upon her return, she discovered that hard times had fallen on the kingdom. The royal wizard had taken to munching magic mushrooms, and had called down some rather beautiful but quite devastating weather before someone had slipped him a toadstool. The people in the land of milk and honey were eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

As a solution, she recommended that the kingdom acquire a small computer to aid in forecasting the weather and to provide an inventory management system that would make certain that the royal storehouses contained something besides peanut butter, which she detested. There was a problem, her father said, because the rules of the game stated that realworld things must be procured with realworld money, unlike her education, which had been secured by exchange agreements with MIT and Harvard. Very well, she said, she'd go back and get a job. He wished her luck, reminding her that there was a recession going on.

Times were hard in the realworld too, but Dorinda was an excellent programmer with good credentials--and personnel departments wanted to fill the bottom levels of company organization charts with females who could check "other" for racial origin. So after some hard moments--and after applying the tiniest bit of magic--Dorinda found herself employed by Megacomputer Corp., working on something they called the P6.

"The problem," section head Pete White told her the first day, "is that the P6 is Megacomputer's version of the Edsel. Nobody wants it and it doesn't work very well. In fact," he blew a smoke ring from his cigar, "nobody wanted it four years ago when it was supposed to be finished and nobody wanted it seven years ago when some body thought of the idea."