Return of the space invaders

I hate this industry. Perhaps I shouldn't say that here - maybe it could be construed as dangerous talk. Who knows, perhaps a VNU bigwig will spot it. I can see him now reading this in his palatial office.

After a thoughtful pause he will press a small button hidden just under the corner of his desk. A minute later a nondescript man will enter the office; the two of them will talk. One week later I wake up dead. According to the coroner, I died of natural causes - the anvil that smashed open my head while I was asleep had accidentally got lodged in the rafters of my flat when a blacksmith's in Newbury was bombed during World War II. No one notices the nondescript man nodding quietly with the coroner in the back of the courtroom, or that no matter how you doctor the story, it would have to be a pretty big bomb to blast an anvil from Newbury to Wandsworth.

Wait a minute, what am I saying? No one at VNU will be taking any notice of my column - although if, after this, I am found with an anvil labelled: 'This anvil belongs to a Newbury blacksmith' in my head, please ask questions.

No, the reason I hate this industry is, in a word, space. I have just been sent Encarta 99. I like Encarta, it's fun. I have made myself late for all sorts of things because I have been playing with Encarta, sitting there in mute amazement as it describes something I have always wanted to know. I love Encarta.

But I hadn't noticed until I opened it up that I had been sent the Reference Suite. The thing to note about the Reference Suite is that it needs five CD-Roms - that's right, five CD-Roms. Two CD-Roms for Encarta99, two CD-Roms for Encarta World Atlas99 and a single CD-Rom for Microsoft Bookshelf.

I remember a time when we could say things like: 'What on earth am I going to do with all the space on this 100Mb hard disk?' At much the same time we would be saying: 'Well, 650Mb on a CD-Rom, I can't see anyone needing any more than that.' Well, I've got five of the damn things and I find it all very frustrating.

The instant I want to do something interesting in Encarta, I get messages such as: 'Please insert second disk'. By the time I have scrabbled around my desk and found it I've forgotten what I'm looking for.

So I hit on an idea - I thought I'd copy all the files onto a 2Gb Jaz disk, then I could have all the fun of Encarta without changing the disk.

This worked perfectly well - until I ran out of space. I couldn't believe it - I have a 2Gb hard disk that does not have enough space on it.

What is the industry coming to? Can't we just stop where we are now and leave things alone? Can we please just stop developing things for just a little while?

OK, OK, I submit, I give up - can anyone do me a deal on a DVD drive? Oh, and did I mention how much I hate this industry?