Once upon a time, in a far-away kingdom called Disk, there lived a forlorn Cylinder Ella.
Cylinder Ella was always being accused of being off the track by her three ugly alternates.
One day, when it seemed that she had been going round in circles for hours, a message arrived at her address to say that there was to be a gathering of important characters at the home of Prints Charming. Of course, she was very excited, but how could she go, defective as she was? She looked as though she lived in a dump!
At the moment of her deepest despair, her fairy god monitor appeared. "What you need is a good surface analysis, Cylinder Ella" said FGM. "I usually do my magic with a decimal hex, but what you need is a binary switch and I'm not a bit too early. Just a moment, I'll patch you right up. Now, shift left and byte down hard, while taking a deep breath …….. there, you now look beautiful for going to see the Prints. But, you must be home by midbyte, as that Prints moves in very fast company - he's a sector maniac, you know!"
Cylinder Ella didn't understand what FGM meant, but she felt as though she had been re-initialised and she felt a very bit as good as her alternate systems. So off she went.
When she arrived at the home of the Prints, the alternates looked up and agreed that they had no I.D. who she was. Prints had never seen anyone so lovely, and recognised immediately that she was a special character. Cylinder Ella was having such a good time that she quite forgot about the clock, until just as the Prints was going to ask her about some data she was magically interrupted and transferred back to her old address.
Cylinder Ella was very sad and days went by and still she heard nothing from the Prints. Finally she received another message which said, "I'm in the mode for love. Tonight I will have the carriage return for you. I will carry the imprint of your image forever." Cylinder Ella nearly had a power failure, as she fell back on her matrix.
"He is ASCIing me to be his Prints S! Oh how my world revolves around him. I am touched to the very nucleus of my system. This is definitely the logical right shift for me. I must move immediately. And she did.
And they went around like that, happily ever after!