Frank Hayes - S-100 Bus lyrics

When I was young, my friends all worked like fools to get their share Of an S-100 system, like an Imsai or Altair Well the S-100's still around, I'm very glad to say But friends, I'm here to tell you that it's not the same today And it's cheer up, my lads, let your hearts never fuss When you're integrating systems for the S-100 bus To tell the truth, the source of all our troubles seems to be A committee on computers of the I of triple E They settled on a standard spec, 696 by name Now everything is standardized, but nothing works the same They say the 80 boards are way too slow - it's enough to give you fits If the 09 isn't fast enough, then go to 16 bits 68 and z8000 and an 86 as well And code compatibility goes straight to bloody hell Then add a board for the modem line and one for every port And a printer board and a keyboard board, and as a last resort For every problem we will add a board that has the cure It's not too damned efficient, but it's a mother, that's for sure And when it's all a**embled there's computer to your choler It's nice to have a micro but a mainframe would be smaller And when they turn the power on, it's sure to dim the lamps With plus or minus sixteen volts and fourteen hundred amps