GOOFY RUMORS

We've heard a lot of wild stories about Commodore's being acquired by Apple, or Sun, or Hewlett-Packard, based on little or no fact. The one about Hewlett-Packard appears to have arisen in response to the fact that Commodore purchased a bunch of Paint-Jet printers for in-house use and was thought to be negotiating with HP for a house-brand version of the color printer. We've already started to hear rumors that Disney is buying Commodore. Doesn't seem to be any truth in it—Disney officials insist that the company is in "the entertainment business." Translated into computerese, that means the company is into software, not hardware. I bet the only reason this rumor is being spread is so people can say, "I always knew that Commodore was a Mickey Mouse outfit."

—SHELDON LEEMON