Strong Bad's Computers Surpassing Their Assumed Capabilities

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The Compy displaying a full-color photo

Despite Strong Bad's preference for older computers, they are nevertheless capable of performing tasks that the real-life computers they are based on cannot. The Tandy 400, Compy 386 and Lappy 486 all run operating systems that are heavily based on MS-DOS, and each computer's graphics capabilities are based on those of real-life monitor types. Mouse pointers have also appeared on these computers, when none have been shown to have a mouse or laptop pad, in the Lappy's case.

Contents

Appearances

Irregular File Names

File names of actual MS-DOS computers have an eight-character limit, with certain characters that are disallowed (such as apostrophes and slashes). Some of Strong Bad's file names have these.

Irregular Graphics and Sound

Tandy 400

The Tandy has a monochrome green/orange display, yet multi-color graphics and photos have appeared on it. Its sound capabilities also surpass those of computers of its era.

Compy 386

The Compy has a monochrome white/blue display, yet multi-color graphics and photos have appeared on it. While it has been shown to be capable of playing musical notes in the form of scratchy tones (its start-up/error sound, Crazy Go Nuts University fight song rendition and (possibly) The Cheat is Not Dead music), sounds from more modern computers have been heard from it.

  • ghosts — The Tandy-rendered Bad Graphics Ghost appears on the Compy, though this is likely caused by the Tandy's ghost.
  • website — The Compy plays several animated GIFs and displays two full-quality photos.
  • marzipan — The Message Thyme pop-ups are in Windows style, and has vocalized instant messager-like sounds accompanying them.
  • interview and pizzazz — The Compy displays a Gothic font.
  • autobiography — The Compy plays the Windows 9x "ding" sound.
  • big white face
  • couch patch — The Compy plays a Mac OS 9 sound after Strong Bad's first two attempts to print a million dollar bill.
  • flashback — The Compy shows the email from some kinda robot in the Tandy's font and green color.
  • lunch special
    • The Compy once again plays the "ding" sound.
    • Additionally, a Microsoft Paint drawing is displayed.
  • virus
    • The Compy plays the "ding" sound.
    • The Compy gets many more viruses than could possibly fit on a computer of its kind.
  • April Fool 2014 — After inexplicably reappearing, the Compy runs Windows 98, plays a sound clip of Strong Bad's voice, and has a microphone extend to the front of his face, which he uses to record a new startup sound for his desktop theme.

Lappy 486

In addition to running a DOS-like operating system, further technical specifications for this computer were listed in animal:

  • 2 MB hard drive
  • 512 KB RAM
  • 5 minute battery life
  • "Several" color monitor

While these specifications are greater than Strong Bad's earlier computers, they have occasionally been challenged as well.

  • death metal — The Lappy runs a full-color video chat with Larry Palaroncini on a webcam that it doesn't seem to have.
  • retirement — Strong Bad says he has "a lot of important text files on that 5 Meg hard drive" when it was previously stated that the Lappy's hard drive holds two megabytes. It is possible Strong Bad since upgraded it.
  • from work — In this Lappy 486-era email, the Corpy NT6 (which is also DOS-based) displays a full-quality spreadsheet.

See Also

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