Strange things are done to be number one
In selling the computer The Druids were entrepreneurs,
IBM has their strategem And they built a granite box
Which steadily grows acuter, It tracked the moon, warned of monsoons,
And Honeywell competes like Hell, And forecast the equinox
But the story's missing link Their price was right, their future
Is the system old at Stonemenge sold bright,
By the firm of Druids, Inc. The prototype was sold;
From Stonehenge site their bits and byte
Would ship for Celtic gold.
The movers came to crate the frame;
It weighed a million ton!
The traffic folk thought it a joke The man spoke true, and thus to you
(the wagon wheels just spun); A warning from the ages;
"They'll nay sell that," the foreman Your stock will slip if you can't ship
spat, What's in your brochure's pages.
"Just leave the wild weeds grow; See if it sells without the bells
"It's Druid-kind, over-designed, And strings that ring and quiver;
"And belly up they'll go." Druid repute went down the chute
Because they couldn't deliver.
-- Edward C. McManus, "The Computer at Stonehenge"