The hype cycle behind Steve and Bill's dueling banjo show

Bill Gates and Steve Jobs share the stage tomorrow at the D: All Things Digital conference, but the lead-up to the event will probably be more interesting.

What will we get? Basically a dueling banjos thing where Microsoft unveils its PlayTable technology, which aside from Mary Jo Foley few have chronicled. Hmm, that's the downside of the prebriefing folks (just speculation on my part of course).

But soon those embargos will be able to launch and there will likely be a few stories in the Wall Street Journal tomorrow with more details about PlayTable. Meanwhile, the conference dinner and golf outing tonight is likely to leak more details to the likes of Mike Arrington and other choice bloggers.

Soon you'll have 200 links on Techmeme. It'll be coverage of Facebook-ian proportions. You'll get a very touchy scene--Apple's touch screen vs. Microsoft's holographic-multi-touch-thingamajig-demo-we've-seen-30-times-already (see Techmeme).

Dan Farber will be there chronicling the blow by blow. But we already know what's going to happen.

What's Steve going to do?

Hate to blow this surprise for you, but he apparently has already outlined his preparation on his blog. Oh yeah

, that's the fake Steve, but we know it's true.

Why wouldn't Steve one-up Microsoft's one-upping with more iPhone nuggets? Maybe Steve will blow Bill out of the water with the next (and delayed) Mac OS.

In the end, we'll have millions of pixels devoted to this duel and you won't remember it a week from now. After all, these two have shared the stage before. Do you remember what happened? Me neither. Luckily, there are a few photos (right and above) to jog your memory.