If _____ Made Toasters
If _____ made toasters
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 Hewlett-Packard made toasters...
They would market the Reverse Toaster, which takes
in toast and gives you regular bread.
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 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 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 wouldweigh 15000 pounds
(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.
