Disk 4 of 12 - FriendlyWare

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In the first official installment of Strong Bad's Disk 4 of 12, Strong Bad takes a look at the FriendlyWare PC Introductory Set.

Cast (in order of appearance): Strong Bad, D n' D Greg, Sci-Fi Greg, Open Source Greg, Japanese Culture Greg, Homestar Runner, What's Her Face

Places: Computer Room, The Show

Date: Friday, February 12, 2021

Running Time: 14:00

Page Title: Turkey Farm Dreams!

Contents 1 Transcript 2 Fun Facts 2.1 Trivia 2.2 Inside References 2.3 Real-World References 3 External Links

Transcript

{A live-action case filled with 5 inch floppies sits on a desk next to an old computer. The disk in the front has a handwritten label reading "Disk 4 of 12". Strong Bad's gloves reach into the shot, open the case and begin rifling through the contents.}

STRONG BAD: {singing} When I check my email,

{Strong Bad holds up a disk labeled "Old Game".}

STRONG BAD: —there are some old games.

{Strong Bad inserts the disk into a disk drive and then types on a keyboard with boxing gloves on.}

STRONG BAD: Now I'm gonna play them for you.

{The monitor comes to life, showing a screen reading "Strong Bad's Disk 4 of 12". A disk reading noise plays.}

{Fade into a shot of Strong Bad's desk, zooming in on the container of floppy disks, the frontmost one reading "friendly ware".}

STRONG BAD: {voiceover} This episode's game comes from sbemail 65: unused emails. And this game, oh man, it's the greatest game!

{Cut to live-action. Strong Bad's gloves display the game's case, which is a small, white, 3-ring binder containing 3 diskettes and some legal and instructional papers.}

STRONG BAD: {voiceover} The FriendlyWare P.C. Introductory Set was a series of games and... productivity... programs?

{Cut to a shot of the computer, which displays a blank screen.}

STRONG BAD: {voiceover} that were made to introduce the early-1980's family-

{The screen displays the family from QWERTY.}

STRONG BAD: {voiceover} -to their new personal computer.

{Cut back to the case}

STRONG BAD: {voiceover} Let's take a look here.

{Strong Bad flips the contents of the case to the instructional sheet at the front.}

STRONG BAD: {voiceover} Woah! Look at-

{Cut to a close-up of the sheet, which has illustrations of the Control, Alt, and Period/Delete keys which extend to show the neighboring keys.}

STRONG BAD: {voiceover} the size of those Control-Alt-Delete keys! Those things look like... family sedans!

{The illustration of the Alt key grows four wheels and drives out of frame, complete with exhaust smoke, screeching sounds, and tire marks left behind on the sheet. Cut to black, then to a red curtain opening on various folded shapes with Ctrl, Alt, and Del (with period) on top on them. The shapes have crude drawings on them to make them resemble vehicles. "Ctrl" is being driven by a crude drawing of Marzipan, "Alt" is occupied by several faces, and "Del" contains a King of Town-like character wearing a hat, as well as a disembodied face resembling that of Strong Mad. "New for 1981" fades into the bottom left.}

STRONG BAD: {voiceover} Introducing the complete fleet of 1981 keyboard {lighted The-Show-style orange sign reading "FAMILY SEDANS" slides in from top} family sedans.

{Cut to a closeup of the Ctrl car, panning up and right. A red burst reading "16 Ashtrays" spins into the top right}

STRONG BAD: {voiceover} The Control, for moms on the go.

{Cut to a closeup of the Alt car, panning up and left. A red burst reading "Optional Seat"belt"" spins into the top left}

STRONG BAD: {voiceover} The Alt, for big families.

{Cut to a closeup of the Del car, zooming in. A red burst reading "Body already in trunk!" spins into the bottom left}

STRONG BAD: {voiceover} And for the shady businessman, the Delete.

{Fade out, cut back to Strong Bad attempting to flip through the instructional sheet, but failing since he is wearing boxing gloves}

STRONG BAD: {voiceover} Let's see, what else we got in here? Oh yeah, I gotta call out this specific passage. This is amazing:

{Cut to a closeup of the instructional sheet, with the paragraph Strong Bad reads being highlighted and zooming in}

STRONG BAD: {voiceover} Whereas the great majority of microcomputers have a total addressable memory of 64k or less, the PC's attainable range of addressable memory is theoretically {text bulges out as he reads it} nearly 1 Megabyte. {stops reading} Can't you just see a bunch of bearded Palo Alto types sittin' around with pipes?

{Cut to a 4 Gregs scenario with the Gregs all with beards and pipes. D n' D Greg is sitting on a chair with "d n' d greg (early adopter)" on his shirt, Sci-Fi Greg sitting on the ground with "some old greg" on his shirt, Open Source Greg standing twirling his pipe with "GNU project greg" on his shirt, and Japanese Culture Greg standing with bubbles coming out of his pipe with "mostly just starblazers greg at this point" on his shirt}

OPEN SOURCE GREG: Uh, gentlemen, the data is there! {raising his pipe} We WILL reach 1 megabyte by century's end!

{D n' D Greg is crushed by a monitor with a built-in floppy disk drive, with (A)BORT! written above. Sci-Fi Greg is crushed by a larger monitor without a drive, (R)ETRY! written above. Open Source Greg is not crushed by anything, instead gaining a shocked expression, (i)GNORE! written above. Japanese Culture Greg is crushed by a large tower with a reel-to-reel tape recorder built in, (F)AiL! written above, which later changes to (C)RASH!.}

STRONG BAD: {voiceover} Abort! Retry! Ignore! Fail! Or crash, sometimes.

Fun Facts

Trivia

Inside References

• FriendlyWare first appeared on a floppy disk in unused emails.
• Scenes from this episode were previously shown in various @StrongBadActual tweets.
• Hallrunner is mentioned, with the player character and an obstacle dialog box appearing.

Real-World References

• Star Blazers is the name given to the English translation of Space Battleship Yamato I.
• The match game resembles Concentration, a memory-based game show that aired from the 50s to the 70s and was revived from 1987-1991.
• Strong Bad makes several references to Doom while playing the maze game.
• "Abort, Retry, Fail?" is an error message in MS-DOS.

External Links

• watch "Disk 4 of 12 - FriendlyWare"
• watch "Disk 4 of 12 - FriendlyWare" on YouTube