If Microsoft started building cars (+more)
Iain Anderson
: FORWARDED MESSAGE...
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: Original Message by:
: len.m...@argonet.co.uk
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: For your entertainment......
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: 10 things that would be different if Microsoft started building cars:
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: 1) A particular model year of car wouldn't be available until after
: that year
: - instead of before it
[etc, etc]
: Let's have some more... ...how about 100 ideas!
: Gary.
27) The car would be fitted with high-tech door locks, but there would only
be two different keys. It would have an immobiliser and alarm that could
be switched off by pushing a toggle on the dash. And the radio would
have a security code, but the code number would be printed on the front
of the radio
(ref. poor encryption of network and other passwords)
____
Iain
G.M.Davison
FORWARDED MESSAGE...
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Original Message by:
len.m...@argonet.co.uk
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For your entertainment......
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10 things that would be different if Microsoft started building cars:
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1) A particular model year of car wouldn't be available until after
that year
- instead of before it
2) Every time they repainted the lines on the road, you'd have to buy
a new car.
3) Occasionally your car would just die for no reason, and you'd have
to restart it. For some strange reason, you'd just accept this.
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3a) Occasionally, executing a manouvre 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.
I A Nichols (cp...@mail.bris.ac.uk)
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4) You could only have one person in the car at a time,
unless you
bought a "Car 95" or a "Car NT". But then you'd have to buy more
seats.
5) Sun Motor Systems would make a car that was powered by the sun,
twice as reliable, and five times as fast - but it would only run on
five percent of the roads.
6) The oil, engine, gas and alternator warning lights would be
replaced with a single "General Car Fault" warning light.
7) People would get excited about the "new" features in Microsoft
cars, forgetting completely that they had been available in other cars
for many years.
8) We'd all have to switch to Microsoft gas
9) The U.S. government would be getting subsidies from an auto maker
instead of giving them.
10) New seats would force everyone to have the same size butt.
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11) The airbag system would say "Are you sure?" before going off.
12) The steering wheel would be replaced by a mouse and you'd need to
memorise the keyboard short-cut for "brake".
13) For some reason the engine controller would need a 1gig Hard Drive
and would take 5 mins to boot up.
14) The windows would take ages to update, having first paged on to and
off disc.
Nigel Barrett (ni...@c3po.demon.co.uk)
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15) Your car would refuse to start with a message "Abort, Retry, Fail, or
Cancel?"
Ian Kershaw (i...@dungeon.demon.co.uk)
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16) Your car would also say "Steering Column not present. Pump horn to
Continue..."
Bungle (pr...@york.ac.uk)
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17) 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.
Tony Houghton (to...@tcp.co.uk)
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18) 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 existing stuff!
19) IBM would make a much better car which ran on the same roads, but they
wouldn't advertise as much, and would therefore not sell as many.
20) Microsoft would do so well, because even though they don't own any
roads, all of the road manufacturers would give away Microsoft cars free,
including IBM!
21) 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!
22) If you couldn't afford to buy a new car, then you could just borrow
your friends, and then copy it!
nb. Neither I, nor Coventry University endorse copying software <or
cars!> in any way whatsoever!)
Gary Davison (gdav...@coventry.ac.uk)
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23) Whenever you bought a car, you would have to reorganise the ignition
for a few days before it worked.
24) You would need to by an upgrade to run cars on a motorway next to
each other.
25) If you were involved in a crash, you would have no idea what happened.
26) You would have to make a go-kart to get to places like "Doomingham",
or "Hereticshire".
(nb. This is refering to boot discs for us uninformed AU's! - GMD)
Tim "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter" Everson (t.ev...@lancs.ac.uk)
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