Making Toasters
If Xerox made toasters...you could toast one sided
or double sided. Successive slices would get lighter and lighter.
The toaster would jam your bread for you.
If Apple made toasters...they'd claim their toaster
was compatible with all brands and styles of bread, but when
you got it home you'd discover the Bagel Engine was still
in development, the Croissant Extension was three years away,
and that indeed the whole appliance was just blowing smoke.
If Hewlett-Packard made toasters...they would market
the Reverse Polish Toaster, which takes toast and gives you regular bread.
If Sony made toasters...the Toast man would barely
be larger than the single piece of bread it was designed to
toast, and it could be conveniently attached to your belt.
If IBM made toasters...they would have one big toaster
where people bring bread to be submitted for overnight toasting.
IBM would claim a world wide market for five, maybe six
toasters.
If Microsoft made toasters...every time
you bought a loaf of bread you would have to buy a toaster.
You wouldn't have to take the toaster, but you'd still have
to pay for it anyway. Toaster 98 would weigh 15,000 pounds
(hence requiring a reinforced steel countertop), draw enough
electricity to power a small city, take up 95 percent of the
space in your kitchen, would claim to be the first toaster
that lets you control how light or dark you want your toast
to be, and would secretly interrogate your other appliances
to find out who made them. Everyone would hate Microsoft toasters,
but nonetheless would buy them since most of the good bread
only works with their toasters.
And of course, UNIX toasters would have a really complicated
handle, although once you've learnt how to use it the toast
would come out twice as fast...
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