What 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.
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 Dixons 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 University of
Waterloo made toasters: They would immediately spin off a company called
WatToast.
If ParcPlace made toasters: Their OO building block system
would be called EGGO.
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 Bagel Engine 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.
Does
DEC still make toasters?: They made good toasters in the '80s, didn't
they?
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
Thinking Machines made toasters: You would be able to toast 64,000 pieces of
bread at the same time.
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 Timex made toasters: They
would be cheap and small quartz-crystal wrist toasters that take a licking
and keep on toasting.
If Fisher Price made toasters: "Baby's
First Toaster" would have a hand-crank that you turn to toast the bread
that pops up like a Jack-in-the-box.
If the Franklin Mint made
toasters: Every month, you would receive another lovely hand-crafted piece
of your authentic hand-crafted Civil War pewter toaster.
If Costco
made toasters: They'd be really cheap, as long as you bought a six-pack of
'em.
And, of course:
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.
|
