There was a ripe collection of April Fool items flying around the industry this year, with BICC Plc’s BICC Information Systems & Services promoting its underware, the first two items being BISS-SLIP for Synchronised Linked Internet Protocol and BISS-NICS Network Integrity Circuit Service, and Chase Research Inc of Nashville, Tennessee threatening to knock MS-DOS, Unix and NT off their perches with a resurrected CPM/93 version of the late lamented CP/M operating system – and comes on 300 8 floppies, bundled with an 8 floppy drive for $100; but the prize has to go for Hewlett-Packard Ltd, which yesterday announced new security features for its Vectra personal computers – User Fingerprint Recognition on all models, and both Photographic Recognition – a tiny camera in the middle of the screen that recognises you even when you come back with a tan, and Odour Recognition – designated users must not change their perfume or after shave – on 80486 models; not recognised? The screen blanks and a 150dB alarm goes off.
