For all who entered into the great Mac vs. PC debate, here's a little
biting humor that seems relevant.
If IBM made toasters...
They would want one big toaster where people bring bread to be
submitted for overnight toasting. IBM would claim a worldwide market
for five, maybe six 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 Radio Shack made toasters...
The staff would sell you a toaster, but not know anything about it. Or
you could buy all the parts to build your own toaster.
If Oracle 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 BagelEngine was
still in development, the Croissant Extension was three years away, and
that indeed the whole appliance was just blowing smoke.
If Sun made toasters...
The toast would burn often, but you could get a really good cuppa
Java.
If Hewlett-Packard made toasters...
They would market the Reverse Polish Toaster, which takes in toast and
gives you regular bread.
If Tandem made toasters...
You could make toast 24 hours a day, and if a piece got burned the
toaster would automatically toast you a new one.
If Cray made toasters...
They would cost $16 million but would be faster than any other
single-slice toaster in the world.
If The Rand Corporation made toasters...
It would be a large, perfectly smooth and seamless black cube. Every
morning there would be a piece of toast on top of it. Their service
department would have an unlisted phone number, and the blueprints for
the box would be highly classified government documents. The X-Files
would have an episode about it.
If the NSA made toasters...
Your toaster would have a secret trap door that only the NSA could
access in case they needed to get at your toast for reasons of
national security.
If Sony made toasters...
The ToastMan, which would be barely larger than the single piece
of bread it is meant to toast, can be conveniently attached to your
belt.
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'95 would weigh 15000 pounds (hence requiring
a reinforced steel countertop), draw enough electricity to power a small
city, take up 95% 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.
If Apple made toasters...
It would do everything the Microsoft toaster does, but 5 years earlier.
And finally
DOS Computers, manufactured by thousands of companies, are by far the
most popular, with about 70 million machine in use worldwide.
Macintosh fans, on the other hand, may note that cockroaches are far
more numerous than humans, and that numbers do not denote a higher life
form.
Ken Kiehlbauch
Faith Academy
Manila, Philippines
(On sabattical in Racine, WI)