By Colm Pewter
True Dork Times Technology Editor

CUPERTINO, California (TDT).  As the spectacular decline of the NASDAQ market nears its one-year anniversary, Silicon Valley executives are muttering privately that the technology sector has yet to see its darkest days.  Having long since abandoned the legions of fanciful web-based startup companies that crested in 2000, jittery investors are now focusing their ire on the backbone of the cyber industry: the hardware and software manufacturers that power the world's computers.

"We've had more than corporate client tell us this month that they're ripping out all their computers, and going back to pencil and paper," Oracle CEO Larry Ellison grimaced yesterday, in front of a packed room here at the Apple campus.  "And it's not just computers - all the IT sectors are affected. Some companies say they're replacing their digital videoconferencing systems with cans tied together with string.  These are dire times, and we may need to diversify to stay solvent."

Apple chief Steve Jobs had similarly dour news in his keynote address. "We've all seen the footage on CNN of offices dumping cartloads of computers off twenty-storey buildings, down onto the sidewalks.  Yes, we all had a good laugh when it was just Intel boxes smashing into the pavement.  But now it's Macs, SPARC stations and Silicon Graphics machines!  The end is near!"

Meanwhile, the low-tech revolt is having a ripple effect on other communities near Silicon Valley.  Berkeley police have been run ragged as several violent clashes have erupted between the existing population of homeless street punks, and the massive numbers of fresh immigrant homeless, almost entirely former dot-com employees.  The Gilman Street punks consider the parks and alleyways of the area their turf, and have frequently beaten and kicked the new arrivals, screaming "Go home, nerds!"

While this may seem to be a Luddite counter-revolution, several industrial sources say that computers never brought them the profits they expected, and in fact, damaged worker productivity and morale.  One GM executive, for example, gave this anonymous critique:  "Our employees would just sit around all day, watching their stock values drop, then go back to downloading porn. People ask us how we can get anything done without computers.  My question is: when did we ever get anything done with computers?"  The executive later explained that he was keeping the computer on his desk, "but only for, uh, research purposes."

As investors flee these cyber stalwarts like rats from a sinking ship, many of the former silicon titans are now left with the unpleasant prospect of trying to put out non-digital products to keep their companies afloat.  At many companies, this process has already been in the works for several months.

Microsoft, long the investment darling among the software manufacturers, has decided to start selling real, 100% glass windows.  "The good thing is, these break often, so it's just like forcing the user to upgrade every 18 months," a visibly poorer, but chipper Bill Gates announced.

Apple, whose market share reflects its long history of razor-sharp perception of consumer wants and desires, has opted for a more technology-laden backup product line.  "As of today, we will now begin selling our own strain of genetically-modified apples, which will come in a series of designer colors and patterns," beamed Jobs, proudly, as a twenty-foot-high Granny Smith bearing Apple's "blue dalmation" color scheme lit up the screen behind him. "Our market research suggests that the public will absolutely love this."