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Technology Stocks : COMS & the Ghost of USRX w/ other STUFF -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: mr.mark who wrote (19792)	12/4/1999 3:19:00 AM
From: Scrapps	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 22053

Cars vs. Computers When Silicon Valley wants to look good, it measures itself against Detroit. The comparison goes like this: If automotive technology had kept pace with computer technology over the past few decades, you would now be driving a V-32 instead of a V-8, and it would have a top speed of 10,000 miles per hour. Or you could have an economy car that weighs 30 pounds and gets a thousand miles to a gallon of gas. In either case, the sticker price of a new car would be less than $50. In response to all this goading, Detroit grumbles: Yes, but would you really want to drive a car that crashes twice a day? ----------------------------------------------------------- If Microsoft Built Cars * A particular model year of car wouldn't be available until AFTER that year. * Every time the lines were repainted on the road, you'd have to buy a new car. Occasionally your car would just die for no reason. You would just restart it. You would just accept this as normal. Occasionally, executing a maneuver would cause your car to stop and fail to restart and you'd have to re-install the engine. For some strange reason, you'd just accept this too. * You could only have one person at a time in your car, unless you bought a Car95 or a CarNT, and then you would have to buy more seats. * New seats will force everyone to have the same sized butts. * You would constantly have to upgrade your car. * The oil, generator, gas and engine warning lights would be replaced by a "General Car Fault" warning light. * People would get excited about the "new" features in Microsoft Cars, forgetting completely that they had been available in other brands for years. * We would still be waiting for the "6000 SUX 58" model to come out. * We'd all have to switch to Microsoft Gas™, and other fluids, but the packaging would be superb. * Ford, G.M. and Chrysler would all be complaining because Microsoft was putting a surround sound complete stereo system in all it's models. * There would be no ignition key, just a 'start' button. * For lack of a better idea, and to prevent anybody from developing a unique identity for their car, all models would simply be dubbed "My Car". * All the useful previously standard features, such as headlights, accelerator pedal and paint, would come in an optional "Plus" pack. * People would pay money to test drive a Microsoft Car into a wall so that Microsoft could assess their pre-release cars. * Car '95 would go down in history as the "Edsel for the 90's". The airbag system would say "Are you sure?" before going off. If you were involved in a crash, you would have no idea what happened. * They wouldn't build their own engines, but form a cartel with their engine suppliers. The latest engine would have 16 cylinders, multi-point fuel injection and 4 turbos, but it would be a side-valve design so you could use Model-T Ford parts on it. * There would be an "Engium Pro" with bigger turbos, but it would be slower on most existing roads. * Microsoft cars would have a special radio/cassette player which would only be able to listen to Microsoft FM, and play Microsoft Cassettes. Unless of course, you buy the upgrade to use exciting stuff. * Microsoft would do very well, because even though they don't own any roads, all of the road manufacturers would give away Microsoft cars free, including IBM! * If you still ran old versions of car (ie. CarDOS 6.22/CarWIN 3.11), then you would be called old fashioned, but you would be able to drive much faster, and on more roads! * If you couldn't afford to buy a new car, then you could just borrow your friends, and then copy it. * Whenever you bought a car, you would have to rewire the ignition for a few days before it worked. * You would need to buy an upgrade to run cars on a motorway next to each other. * Some people would trade their 95's back in for their previous cars. * Microsoft Rapid Transit would be offered as an alternative, but would be really slow. * Every car dealership owner would look like Bill Gates. * Lee Iacocca would be hired-on as Bill Gate's chauffeur. * Apple Motors would make a car that was solar-powered, twice as reliable, five times as fast, and twice as easy to drive and much more comfortable - but it would only run on five percent of the roads, and no one would stock parts for it. * The Apple Motors car owners would get expensive Microsoft upgrades to their cars which would make their cars go much slower and crash for no apparent reason. * Steve Jobs would ride a bike * The U.S. Government would be getting subsidies FROM an automaker, instead of giving them