From: Alex Roberts <bse@dial.pipex.com>
  To  : ggi develop list <ggi-develop@eskimo.com>
  Date: Wed, 5 Aug 1998 21:47:34 +0000

Re: computers and cars ... [fun, offtopic]

hehe, I have the original (English, before the germen->english), very
similar... i've attached it for your pleasure.
(I painstakenliy copied it from a national newspaper when it was printed)
(pps. the article also had a picture of a car hanging off the side of a
bridge, the caption was "Try rebooting it" ;)

Quoting becka@rz.uni-duesseldorf.de (becka@rz.uni-duesseldorf.de):
> Hi - in case some of you don't know this one.
> 
> It has probably translated english->german->english (last step by me), so
> please excuse if you know the original and this version is worse:
> 
> 
> At a trade show (last ComDex IIRC) Bill Gates has compared computer-industry
> to car-industry and stated:
> 
> "If General Motors (GM) would have advanced in technology, as the computer-
>  industry, then we would today all driver $25 cars that run 1000 Miles per
>  gallon."
> 
> As an answer GM (Mr. Welch himself) published the thefollowing press-release:
> 
> If General Motors had developed a technology like Microsoft, we would today
> drive cars with trhe following properties:
> 
> 1. Your car would have an accident twice a day without any visible reason.
> 
> 2. Every time, that road markings are repainted, you have to buy a new car.
> 
> 3. From time to time your car would stop without visible reason on the
> Highway, and you would simply accept that you have to restart and cruise on.
> 
> 4. If you drive certain Maneuvers, like say driving a left turn, the car
> would stop and refuse to restart. You would have to reinstall the engine.
> 
> 5. You can only have one person on board, except if you buy "Car95" oder 
> "CarNT". But then you have to pay for every extra seat.
> 
> 6. Macintosh would build cars, that run 5 times faster on solar energy,
> are reliable and are twice as easy to drive, but only run on 5% of the
> streets.
> 
> 7. The oil-warniung-light, as well as the warnings for battery low and
> high temperature would be replaced by a "General Car Failure" indicator.
> 
> 8. New seats would require everyone to have the same size butt.
> 
> 9. The airbag-system would prompt "Are you sure ?" before engaging.
> 
> 10. At times, the car would lock out out without visible reason.
> You can only get access again using a trcik:
> You have to simultaneously pull the door handle, turn the key and pull at
> the radio antenna.
> 
> 11. General Motors would force you to buy a deluxe set of road maps from
> Rand McNally (a GM associated firm), even if you do not need or want that set.
> If you do not opt for that, the car will run 50% slower.
> Moreover GM would be subject to investigation due to that behaviour.
> 
> 12. Whenever a new car is presented by GM, all drivers have to re-learn how
> to drive, because none of the handles, levers, pedals and wheels would
> function in the same way it used to.
> 
> 13. You would have to press "Start" to shut down the Engine.
> 
> CU,Andy
> 
> -- 
> = Andreas Beck                    |  Email :  <andreas.beck@ggi-project.org> =

-- 
 ________________________________________
|                   |  ___ ________  \_*_|   
| Alex Roberts      |  |__][__ |___    \ |   
| bse@dial.pipex.com|  |__]___]|___    /\| 
|----------------------------------------|
| I live in England, and I'm proud of it |
 -------- http://nuklear.home.ml.org ----

carpc.txt