Hey, army, welcome to our world.(billions spent on computerizing battlefield weaponry)

Software "patches" and upgrades. Hard-drive failure. Cross-platform incompatibility. SCSI ("scuzzy") problems. Every computer quirk that torments the humble home computer user is about to confront the average Joe fighting a war on the new digital battlefield." Lots of luck, guys.

It's not as if the military doesn't already have its high-tech ways of acquiring information. It's a big user of surveillance and communication satellites; its AWACS planes survey the battlefield from above; its radars and sensors provide information unseen by the passerby. Its information-rich weapons include a fleet of Apache helicopters that can track more than 200 moving targets and electronically …