Monday, December 17, 2018

MONDAY MINUTIAE - GATHERING MOS


I never understand when people see something in a TV show and get upset because it’s not the same way as it is in the real world.  I’ve seen this happen because of locations, job descriptions, and people.

But Earth Prime-Time is not the same as Earth Prime; there will. always be differences between the two.  If they were the same, we could never have plotlines like the many invasions of the planet.

And I have another example of how Toobworld is different from the Trueniverse.


From Wikipedia:
DOS is a family of disk operating systems, hence the name. DOS primarily consists of MS-DOS and a rebranded version under the name IBM PC DOS, both of which were introduced in 1981. Other later compatible systems from other manufacturers include DR-DOS(1988), ROM-DOS (1989), PTS-DOS (1993), and FreeDOS (1998). MS-DOS dominated the x86-based IBM PC compatible market between 1981 and 1995.

That’s how it is in Earth Prime.  But over in Earth Prime-Time, things are different…..

‘FRIENDS’
“THE ONE WITH THE HYPNOSIS TAPE”


MONICA GELLER:
As a joke, this customer at work who has a crush on me, gave me a $20,000 tip. His number's on the check. He just did it so I'd call. Pete Becker.
[CHANDLER BING GOOGLES THE NAME*]
CHANDLER BING:
Pete Is this him?
MONICA GELLER:
That's Bill Clinton. Who is he hugging? Oh, my God. That's Pete! Why is Bill hugging Pete?
CHANDLER BING:
This guy invented MOS 865. Every office in the world uses that program.
RACHEL GREENE:
We use MOS!
CHANDLER BING:
There you go.

So in Toobworld, the computers use MOS instead of DOS.  It may be a trivial tidbit, but it helps establish the TV Universe as being a true fantasy realm.

O'Bservation - that exchange of dialogue will be included in Bill Clinton's tally for his eventual inclusion in the Television Crossover Hall of Fame.

BCnU!

* I'm only assuming that Chandler was using Google.  Bing could have been using Bing....

2 comments:

Hugh said...

In that episode, Chandler has a magazine in his hand and flips to the page with Pete & Clinton. No Bing or Google--in fact, this would be before Bing was available and was probably before Google was so well known.

Toby O'B said...

Thanks, Hugh. I was working off the script which gave no indication. Amazing how integrated the whole concept of search engines have become in my life that I take it for granted. A shame - I really liked that joke....