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.
