In the beginning, God created the bit. And the bit was a zero. On the first
day, he toggled the 0 to 1, and the Universe was. (In those days, bootstrap
loaders were simple, and "active low" signals didn't yet exist.)
On the second day, God's boss wanted a demo, and tried to read the bit. This
being volatile memory, the bit reverted to a 0. And the universe wasn't. God
learned the importance of backups and memory refresh, and spent the rest of
the day (and his first all-nighter) reinstalling the universe.
On the third day, the bit cried "Oh, Lord! If you exist, give me a sign!"
And God created rev. 2.0 of the bit, even better than the original prototype.
Those in Universe Marketing immediately realised that "new and improved"
wouldn't do justice to such a grand and glorious creation. And so it was
dubbed the Most Significant Bit. Many bits followed, but only one was so
honored.
On the fourth day, God created a simple ALU with 'add' and 'logical shift'
instructions. And the original bit discovered that by performing a single
shift instruction, it could become the Most Significant Bit. And God realised
the importance of computer security.
On the fifth day, God created the first mid-life kicker, rev. 2.0 of the ALU,
with wonderful features, and said "Forget that add and shift stuff. Go forth
and multiply." And God saw that it was good.
On the sixth day, God got a bit overconfident, and invented pipelines,
register hazards, optimising compilers, crosstalk, restartable instructions,
microinterrupts, race conditions, and propagation delays. Historians have
used this to convincingly argue that the sixth day must have been a Monday.
On the seventh day, an engineering change introduced Windows into the
Universe, and it hasn't worked right since.
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