Do it Yourself
Words by Bill Sutton © 1984
TTTO MacNamara's Band by Shamus O'Connor, arranged by Bill Sutton


  C
I went to buy computers, they said a million bucks
      F                   C         G
For a brand-new mainframe IBM:  now that price really sucks.
     C
So I looked at all the pictures and I chose to build my own;
    F               C                  G                  C
For you can build a mainframe from the things you find at home.

Chorus (after every verse):
	    C
	Oh, IBM, DEC and Honeywell, HP, DG and Wang,
	F               C         G
	Amdahl, NEC and NCR, they don't know anything.
	     C                                                 F
	They make big bucks for systems, so they never want it known
	     F               C                  G                  C
	That you can build a mainframe from the things you find at home.

    C
Now take the CPU, you see, it's only just a box
     F                   C                 G
With blinking lights and whirring fans and lots of cable slots.
     C
So I spent an evening working with some wires and bulbs and pins,
      F                 C              G                   C
And I hauled 'em to the basement and I plugged the freezer in.

  C
I had to have a tape drive; my tape drive was a steal.
  F                C            G
I climbed into the attic for my Dad's old reel-to-reel.
     C
Some cable and some binder twine and soon it was complete:
   F       C               G                  C
My CPU and tape drive at a price no one could beat.

  C
I had to have a disk drive, but it didn't take me long;
F                C                  G
Function follows form, they say, or have I got that wrong?
        C
Well, I found a drive with five new modes that blows the rest away:
F                C              G               C
Cottons, linens, wash-and-wear, rinse and lingerie.

  C
I had to have a console just to make my system run;
    F           C                G
Without a fancy console, then my system wasn't done.
  C
I tied a ten-buck typer to a broken TV tube
    F              C                G                 C
And now I've got a console that can write the evening news.

     C
I've had my system running; I'll admit it's not the best.
    F          C               G
The data isn't right and the response time is a mess.
   C
It crashes every hour and it isn't worth a damn . . .
        F           C                  G         C
But I'm satisfied because it runs just like an IBM!

	     F               C                  G                  C
	Yes, you can build a mainframe from the things you find at home.