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Original song American Pie
Original artist Don Mclean
Filk author Peter L. Buschman
Intro This parody was written in a grand 10 minutes of inspiration, while lamenting the incredible preoccupation with Unix that has taken over computing.

The VMS Mourning Song

It was a long, long, time ago....but I can still remember...
The way that VT used to make me smile,
But I knew if I had my chance, that I could make that keyboard
dance, and maybe I'd be happy for awhile...
But A/UX, it made me shiver...
and Windows NT failed to deliver...
A bad O/S on the doorstep, I couldn't face...one more grep.
I can't remember if I cried, when our dear VAX just up and died...
Something touched me deep inside...
The day our VAXcluster died...

So bye bye, DCL, my CLI...
Our nights of hacking VMS have gone along...goodbye'
And we'll say farewell to EVE, and green screens on the old VT'
The day our VAXcluster died...

I met a man who sang the blues, and I asked him for some happy news..
But he just sighed and turned and said...

    "Unix has won, son, VMS will soon be dead."
And I went down to my sacred corner..where I'd programmed the VAX years before, but the sign there said the VMS wouldn't boot anymore....

And the three commands I admire most... SET PRIV, SHOW USERS, and SET HOST... they caught the last interpreter for the coast...the day our VAXcluster died..

So say hello to cc, Emacs and Vi, our VMS is obsolescent, sit down and have your cry...Unix is taking over, that you can't deny.....it all happened... the day our VAXcluster died....

And while Digital was looking down, Sun grabbed it's electronic crown, The industry was overturned. Bad programming habits were learned.

And while Bill Gates gloated in the park, the hackers programmed in the dark, and we chose Alpha over Sparc! The day our VAXcluster died...

by Peter L. Buschman
With apologies to Don McLean.
Sung to the tune of "American Pie"

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