It is with some sadness we have to report the failure of this experiment to deliver its' final report to time. As you know from my previous reports, due to financial restrictions and the limitations imposed on us by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, we were unable to recruit the infinite number of monkeys, and having taken advice from a statistician, decided that we would have to make do with thirty, this being a sufficiently close approximation to "infinite" that it would probably make no difference. That the statistician was using an early pentium-powered PC to do his calculations is purely incidental....
Similarly, we were unable to obtain typewriters, so we gave the monkeys each a PC running Word 6. As also reported, we did not have an infinite amount of time, and after taking further statistical advice, agreed that the experiment should initially run for a year, after which it would be reviewed; subsequent funding being dependent on a satisfactory review.
Well, after setting up the monkeys at their PCs, we discovered that none of them knew how to use Windows or Word, so we sent them all off on a course. Apparently, the monkeys insisted on pushing bananas into the floppy-disk slots on all the PCs in the training area, and taking the balls out of the mice. The training company's lawyers have still not agreed with ours the exact amount of compensation we have to pay in settlement - the case comes before a judge next Wednesday.
Once the monkeys were trained, they set to, but it was then that we discovered we had the US version of Word, which rejected all Medieval English spellings, therefore nullifying any attempt by the monkeys to write anything even vaguely Shakespearian. Microsoft informed us that the Medieval English dictionary would ship with the next version of Word, some three months away. Meantime, they agreed to give us a beta version, which on loading wiped out all the contents of the monkeys' hard disks.
It took us a week to reinstall the operating system, after which we found that some of the monkeys had acquired AOL '50 hour free-trial' disks and modems, and were playing online games of Doom with a team of grad students in Pasadena. No wonder our phone bills were suddenly so high.
After we disconnected their modems, things quietened down again, until the mating season began. Several of the female monkeys had to be ejected from the project for the duration, since their behaviour was proving a continuous distraction to the males, and we soon ran out of keyboard- and screen-wipes as a result.
Once the breeding season was over, the monkeys again set to work. After a week, the self-appointed Chief Ape came to us and requested we provide his team with a C++ compiler, because he wanted to try out some software that a sub-team had developed during their lunch-breaks. To keep them happy, we gave them a compiler, but pointed out that such unauthorized development projects were not to be undertaken during the normal working day.
Two weeks later, we discovered precisely what the monkeys had been doing when we were visited by Microsoft's development team, who made us an offer of $5 million for the monkeys' software. They want to call it "Windows NT 99" and have offered all the monkeys team-leader jobs. They have made them all very good offers, provided they come as a team. The chief monkey was last seen driving a Lexus, and discussing on a cellphone with his broker how he can avoid tax on the million Microsoft shares that are part of the deal. One of the uglier female monkeys is, allegedly, going to marry Bill Gates next week.
As you no doubt appreciate, all this has thrown the initial project into somewhat of a state of confusion; it is unlikely that we will reach a satisfactory conclusion given the current level of activity. I am therefore requesting an extension of the project by an extra three months, to allow us to recruit and train further monkeys. Note that, given the current state of Microsoft stock, there will be no need for any increased funding - indeed, Microsoft have offered to fund the whole project, conditional on their having exclusive rights to the monkeys' output.