“If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving twenty-five dollar cars that got 1000 miles per gallon.”

Power saving and space wasting

The Cooling Fan

Warranties

Starting and Stopping a Car

The Cars Wouldn't be Reliable Nor Safe

Accessories aint easy to install

Industrial Trucks

No Hot-Swapping of Components

The UnixCar and the LinuxCar

Dumping Free Cars on the Market

The Executives Would Be Praised

The Japs Aint Got No Creativity

The MacCar

Links
 
 
 

Aside from wasting power, HP engineers don't understand that some of us want to put the scanner in storage until we need it so we don't waste space on our desk. I suppose the HP engineers have become so accustomed to life in a cramped cubicle that they are designing their products specifically for cubicles.

Worse of all, I discovered that the Scanjet would not function unless it was connected to the computer and powered up before Windows starts. My uncle discovered that he has to turn his monitor on before Windows starts or Windows doesn't understand what the monitor is.

Therefore, if these companies made cars, we can be certain that many accessories would lack an on/off switch; the accessories must be powered up before we start the engine or they won't function; and we would not be able to put any accessory in storage.

Hewlett Packard would tell us to leave the “HP Windshield Wipers” powered on all the time; the wipers will stop moving after a few minutes and go into a power saving mode that uses only 6 watts. 

If you make the mistake of starting your car without first powering on the HP Windshield Wipers, the WinCar will not realize it has wipers. If it starts to rain, you will have to pull over to the side of the road, turn off the car, remove floppy items, power up the windshield wipers, and then re-start the car.

Likewise, the HP Spare Tire must be mounted on the dashboard and powered up before you start your car. The HP engineers would reassure us that the tire uses only 8 watts of power in its idle state. It wouldn't occur to anybody at HP that some of us want to put the spare tire into storage until we need it.

The engineers of other components reassure us that their components also use only a few watts in their power saving mode. All the components on your car together use 1400 watts while doing absolutely nothing. Add up the watts on a worldwide basis and we find the world is wasting 76 gigawatts while “power saving”.
 

Therefore, if Intel were to design car engines, we can be certain that after decades of experience with car engines their most advanced engines — the five cylinder Pentipumper — would come with an integrated radiator and cooling fan, and the radiator would be positioned in such a manner that it blows hot air and dust directly into the transmission. But only a few consumers would complain about it.

Also, the engine's cooling fan would suck cooling air thru slots and other holes inside the passenger compartment. The openings to the CD ROM player and radio would collect dust as a result.
 

“The SOFTWARE supplied in the Windows 98 Resource Kit Sampler is not officially supported.”

“The SOFTWARE ... is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind.”

“The entire risk arising out of the use or performance of the SOFTWARE and documentation remains with you.”

Microsoft also provides a lengthy “END-USER LICENSE AGREEMENT” in both English and French to warn us not to copy or distribute the software. They want the rights to the software, but not the responsibility.
 

Therefore, if Microsoft built cars we would find our cars come with various warnings in English and French, such as:
 

“Some of the ACCESSORIES on the WINCar98 are not officially supported.

These ACCESSORIES are provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind. The entire risk arising out of the use of these ACCESSORIES remains with you. Don't complain to us if the use of these ACCESSORIES causes you to get into an accident, and don't expect us to fix them if they fail.

You bought the car, so it is your responsibility now. The passage of money from you to us relieves us from responsibility for the mistakes we made.

We are doing you a big favor by providing you with cars; you should be grateful. 

Also, we maintain all rights to the car, so don't even think of fixing our design and then selling an improved version.”

After requesting your WinCar to turn off, you must wait dozens of seconds and listen to lots of engine noises before it finally shuts down.

If the WinCar is like my Windows computer, there will be occasions when the WinCar refuses to shut down. Instead, it would display an error message that some component is busy, or it will lock up in neutral. You will have to turn the car off by pulling off the spark plug wires.

Also, there have been many times when I selected the “Restart” option from the Windows Shutdown menu. However, I was amazed to discover that sometimes Windows wouldn't restart.

For a specific example, I was using Borland's compiler and the compiler was terminated by Windows for some illegal operation. I start the compiler again, but before it had finished loading a message from Windows popped up to tell me the program performed an illegal operation. From that point onward the compiler wouldn't start. So I decided to restart the computer by selecting the restart option from the Shutdown menu. But instead of restarting, I got a message from Windows about something about a “RUN32.DLL” performing an illegal operation. Windows refused to restart itself. I had to push the hardware RESET button.

Incidentally, if you are wondering about whether you should switch from Windows 95 to 98, I can announce that Windows 98 is definitely an improvement over Windows 95 because I press the RESET button fewer times with Windows 98.

I always buy computers with a RESET button because I find myself pressing it several times a week. People without a RESET button must turn off the power to their computer in order to force Windows to restart and/or force the hardware to reset.

Therefore, if these computer companies designed cars we can be certain that sometimes we would find the car displaying an error message that the windshield wipers have performed an illegal operation. The windshield wipers will then be unusable. As the rain water covers the windshield, you will desperately select the “restart” option, but instead of resetting itself the car will display a cryptic message about an illegal operation. You will have to pull over to the side of the road and push the RESET button. If you lack a RESET button, you must open the hood and pull the wires off the spark plugs. Then you will be able to restart the car.

Also, consumers would count the number of times they have to reset their car to determine which model to buy, as in this conversation:
 

George: “Hey, Joe, I was thinking of getting rid of my WinCar95 and buying a WinCar98; do you think the WinCar98 is better?”

Joe: “Yes! I lock up in neutral only 3 times per week now that I switched! It is almost as good as the MacCar was ten years ago!”

I have experienced that “printer busy” message many times, even when the printer is idle. Unfortunately, Windows doesn't have an “override” option, nor does it have a “Reset The Stupid Printer Driver and Parallel Port” option, nor can we depend on the components of a computer to reset themselves after a “warm boot”.

I suppose there are millions of people rebooting their computer each week in response to the problems of Windows and lousy hardware design. This adds up to millions of wasted hours per year. It is a good thing that nobody is responsible for this waste.

What this means is that if these people made cars, we can be certain that the WINCar would be so crummy that occasionally when you step on the brakes the car will flash an error message that the brakes are already in use. You won't be given an option to override. Rather, you would have to open the door, put your foot out, and try to slow down the car yourself. Then you must coast to the side of the road, turn off the car, remove floppy items, and restart.

Lock-ups

I reset my computer several times a week because I screw it up so often. Or maybe I reboot so often because Windows is lousy. Whatever the reason, if computer companies made cars, we can be sure that the WINCars would lock up in neutral for no understandable reason at an average rate of several times each week, but consumers would just accept this dilemma, coast to the side of the road, and endure a 1 to 3 minute delay while the car is restarted. Rather than complain about the car, most of us would assume we just don't know how to properly use a car.
 

Serious defects persist for years

Years ago, the Windows 3.1 version of the software I make would often behave screwy after displaying images that were megabytes in size, and printing often caused program termination or screwy behavior afterwards. After wasting time trying to figure out the source of the error, which I assumed was my fault, I decided that Windows was lousy at memory management, and I just haven't figured out how to work around its problems.

Eventually I began converting my software to 32-bit, and I notice the following remark in the Microsoft help file about memory management:

Win32 processes can safely use the standard C library functions (malloc, free, and so on) to manipulate memory. When used with previous versions of Windows, these functions had potential problems that no longer apply to applications using the Win32 API.

That “geek speak” admits that early versions of Windows were indeed screwing up software sometimes.

The world has provided Microsoft with billions of dollars of profits, which might seem to justify their providing us with an imitation of the Mac that functions properly, but perhaps most of the profit was spent on yachts and 66,000 square foot homes.

Therefore, if Microsoft made cars, consumers would provide them with billions of dollars of profits, but Microsoft would respond by providing us with inferior imitations of a MacCar while spending most of the money on yachts and castles. After about 15 years of suffering with the WinCar, and assuming the problems are our own fault, a few of us we would notice the following remark in their documentation for their WinCar32:
 

Owners of the WinCar32 can now safely use standard automobile accessories (seat covers, luggage racks, and so on). When used with previous versions of WinCars, these accessories would sometimes cause the car to crash for no apparent reason.

Multi-passenger capability

The original DOScar would hold only one passenger at a time, while the MacCAR would be able to hold dozens. After pouring billions of dollars into Microsoft, they would provide us with WINCars, which can carry several passengers.

Microsoft would insist that the WINCars provide each passenger with his own protected space so that a badly behaved passenger doesn't bother the driver or the other passengers. But in reality, the driver and passengers would sometimes find that they are sitting on each other's body parts, and in extreme cases a passenger may find another person's finger in his ear. The result of this corruption of space is that one delinquent passenger can cause the driver to crash the car.
 

For entertainment you can imagine an electric power plant that is running Windows. When the operators need to install or replace a component, they complete the installation by shutting the power plant down and restarting it. (Actually, this could explain some of the brief power outages we experience here in California.)

Anyway, if Microsoft made cars, when you purchase a new item for your car, such as new seat covers or a new headlamp bulb, after the installation of the device you would have to “complete the installation” by shutting off the car, removing floppy items from the trunk, and re-starting the engine, sometimes three or four times.

Changing fuel tanks is a nightmare

If you decide to change fuel tanks in a WinCar because you want a larger tank, or because your tank was damaged, you would discover that the WinCar saves its settings in the fuel tank, and Microsoft never made any provision to copy the settings from one tank to another tank, nor did they bother to allow us to save the settings to a floppy bag. The end result is that changing tanks requires we spend many hours or days re-installing all accessories and re-configuring everything. A process that should take a few minutes ends up taking hours or days.

Incompatibility

I have a ZIP drive, a laser printer, and an HP Scanjet, all of which use a parallel port. I bought a second parallel port card so that the printer can have one for itself, and the other was to be shared by the Scanjet and the ZIP drive. I use a scanner an average of once per month, and only for a few minutes, so most of the time I want to put the scanner into storage to clear space on my desk.

My plan was to disconnect the Zip drive and plug in the scanner during those brief moments when I need a scanner. I use the Zip drive only for backup at the end of the day, (and occasionally to restore a file) so most of the time I do not need the ZIP drive attached or powered up.

Over many months I spent many hours trying to get the scanner and the ZIP drive to work correctly. I discovered that the Zip drive and the scanner will function properly only if they are connected and powered on before Windows starts, but I could get only one of them to function, not both together. So when I wanted to use the scanner, I had to disconnect the ZIP drive, connect the scanner, power up the scanner, and reboot Windows. When I was done with the scanner I had to disconnect it, reconnect the ZIP drive, power up the ZIP drive, and reboot.

I spent many hours altering settings, un-installing and re-installing the ZIP and scanner software, but I never figured out how to get both components to work at the same time. Sometimes I screwed up the computer so badly that the Windows would attempt to boot up, and in the middle of its lengthy bootup procedure it would reboot itself and start up in “Safe Mode”. I then wasted lots of time trying to figure out how to fix that problem. 

After a few months I discover my US Robotics Winmodem no longer works. I re-installed the Winmodem, and then my ZIP drive disappeared. One of the conclusions I came to is that Windows is remembering lots of things that it shouldn't. For example, after I installed the HP scanner, the HP software forever altered some settings in Windows. Even when I un-install the software, something about that HP scanner software remained to interfere with Windows. 

One day I decided to search the HP Internet site for info on how to get the Scanjet to function as easily as the advertisements imply. I thought I was the only person having such troubles, but lots of people besides me have been suffering with these same problems. There may be thousands or millions of people around the world wasting thousands of hours each year on these incompatibility problems.

Incidentally, HP's web site informs us that the Scanjet and the ZIP drive cannot share the same parallel port. 

Therefore, if these companies made cars, the accessories from one company would often be incompatible with the accessories of other companies. If you want to use the Iomega AM/FM radio, you must connect it, power it on, and then start the car. If, while driving, you want to switch to the HP tape cassette player, you must pull over to the side of the road, disconnect the Iomega radio, connect and power up the HP cassette player, and restart the car.

Safe Mode

Aside from wasting thousands of hours per year in futile attempts to get accessories to function correctly, some of us will inadvertently screw up our WINCar to such an extent that it starts up in “Safe Mode”, during which it remains in first gear and doesn't provide the use of any accessory. 

When you become so frustrated with a component that you un-install it, you discover that sometimes only part of the component un-installs; the rest remains to interfere with the remaining components.

On a worldwide basis, each day there would be an average of 10,000 people re-installing some component. Amazingly, none of these problems would interfere with the sales of these crummy cars. 
 

Compilers are like trucks rather than passenger cars. As is true of the first trucks, the first compilers were designed to merely to function rather than maximize the efficiency or comfort of humans. The most irritating problem (to me) with those early compilers was that the compiler was independent of the text editor, so a person had to constantly switch back and forth between a compiler and an editor. Since DOS didn't permit switching programs, we had to exit the editor, start the compiler, exit the compiler, start the editor, etc.

Some programmers would reduce the switching back and forth by doing a lot of work in the editor and then switching to the compiler, but that would often result in so many errors that a lot more time was wasted trying to figure out how to undo the mess. The cautious programmers would make only a few minor changes in the editor and then switch to the compiler to check those few changes before proceeding with more changes.

Philippe Kahn would impress the world with an economical line of “TURBOtrucks” that have glass windows integrated into the truck. He would also sell these trucks at a reasonable price because his goal was to provide the world with quality products rather than to become a billionaire. Anybody with one of his TURBOtrucks could get somewhere fast without spending much money. Not surprisingly, the TURBOtrucks would sell in enormous quantities.

After a few years the geniuses at Microsoft would realize that consumers prefer the integrated windows, so Microsoft would produce an imitation of the TURBOtrucks and refer to them as “QUICKtrucks”. Consumers and magazine editors would then praise Microsoft for being a “leader” that brings new and innovative software the world. Bill Gates would be considered a genius all around the world, while most people would not even recognize the name of Philippe Kahn.
 

Therefore, we can be sure that if these people made cars, none of the components would be designed for “hot-swapping”. In other words, you wouldn't be able to start the car and then add or replace light bulbs, radios, or tires. If you started a car and then pulled out the CD player, the car engine would lock up in neutral. If you then installed the CD player to correct the situation, the car would beep uncontrollably. You would have to shut down the car, remove floppy items, and restart it.

Error - Press F1 to continue

My first few computers also showed me that I must have the keyboard plugged in before turning on the computer, otherwise the BIOS would complain about a keyboard failure and tell me to press the F1 key to continue, even though BIOS realized that the keyboard wasn't responding.

Therefore, if these people designed cars we can be sure that the engineers would designate some component on the car to be the component to press in case of errors, even if that item wasn't on the car. For example, if you tried to start the car while the hood was missing, the CarBIOS would beep and flash the error message:
 

“Hood Failure! Press Hood Ornament To Continue!”

Nobody would explain why the car has such silly limitations; rather, consumers would merely obey the messages. Rumors would circulate that most consumers would obey these error messages even if one of the messages told them:
 

“Hood Failure! Pull down pants and sit on block of ice!”

Eventually the IBM personal computers became advanced enough to use a better operating system than DOS. But Microsoft instead decided to create Windows. Meanwhile, a college kid in Europe (Linus Torvalds) made a simple operating system for use on IBM personal computers similar to Unix, called it Linux, and put it on the Internet for free for other people to improve upon. His original version of Linux was just a college kid's project, not a useable system. A few college kids and some adults around the world improved upon it during the following years it at an extremely slow pace.

Linux has been in development for many years, but by 1999 it was still just a college project rather than a competitor to Windows. 

The primary problem with Linux is that the kids who work on it don't have a clue as to how the real world operates. The Linux supporters follow the “Karl Marx Theory of Free Software” which proposes that Linux and all other software be free. Just as kids expect food to magically appear when they are hungry, and houses to magically appear when they want to get away from the rain, the kids expect software developers to work hard for decades and then distribute their software for free. The kids will gladly spend lots of their Daddy's money on Hollywood movies, beer, body piercings, and other forms of entertainment, but the kids expect software developers, carpenters, and farmers to work for free. The end result is that progress with Linux was extremely slow. 

Linux would never have attracted the attention of adults if the world wasn't full of adults who were disgusted by Microsoft and Windows. By 1999 the disgust had reached the point at which many adults decided to get involved with the development of Linux and make an alternative to Windows.

Companies such as Red Hat started paying adults to develop Linux, and companies such as Borland started paying adults to develop compilers and other software for Linux. Progress with Linux is now moving rapidly. Sometime in 2001 or 2002, the world may (if the project doesn't fail) have a version of Linux that can compete with Windows. 

Therefore, if computer companies built cars, some college kids would make a toy version of the UnixTruck to play with, which they would call the LinuxTruck. The kids would slowly improve the toy truck during the following years, but it would never get beyond the “toy” stage.

Eventually there would be so much disgust of the WinCar that some adults would decide they cannot tolerate the situation any longer. They would take the LinuxTruck away from the kids and put serious effort into making a competitor to Windows. 

Incidentally, this is one of the most odd ways for a product to be developed. Look thru history and try to find another situation in which disgust of a company caused people around the world to develop an alternative to their product. And then consider that the adults took a kid's toy to compete in the adult world!

After a few years the Microsoft managers would notice that there are potential profits in cars that can browse the world, so Microsoft would divert profits from their other products to create yet another “Team CopyCat” to copy the Netscape cars and pass them out for free. But nobody would accuse Microsoft of “dumping” products, copy-catting, or playing unfairly. Rather, Americans would accuse only the Japanese of unfairness, and Microsoft would be considered a leader who is taking the world to places no company has gone before.
 

Magazines reporters would also insist that the car market has healthy competition, and that Microsoft is actually making a better society and a better car. They would provide a variety of intelligent reasons for their praise for Microsoft, such as:
 

1) Car technology is improving thru the years; therefore, Microsoft is the reason we have progress.

2) Several small car companies are surviving in niche markets; therefore, Microsoft aint wiping out its competition.

3) Microsoft sells expensive development kits and offers expensive training programs to help us use Microsoft cars; therefore, Microsoft is a company that wants to help us.

4) Lots of people have lots of money invested in Microsoft, and most investors would rather suffer with lousy products than lousy dividends, so we shouldn't do anything that might reduce the price of Microsoft stock.

The end result would be that millions of people around the world would waste an average of several hours per year per person trying to cope with the incompatibilities and other problems of the Microsoft cars, but nobody would demand the lousy cars be recalled, nor would anybody suggest that the management of Microsoft or Intel be replaced with better people, nor would anybody suggest seizing the bank accounts of Microsoft executives. Only medical doctors, plumbers, and carpenters would get in trouble for incompetence.

Rather than complain about the crummy cars, Americans would brag that they dominate the world's car business because they are the best car developers on the planet. The Americans would boast that their dominance over Japan is due to the Oriental brain lacking a “creativity” feature that is inherent in the more advanced, American brain. The Americans would also boast that the advanced American culture encourages creativity while the idiotic Oriental culture suppresses it. The Americans would also criticize the Japs as “copy-cats” who merely manufacture American products at lower cost with their semi-slave labor.

The Japs would never respond by calling Microsoft a copy-cat or a “product dumper”, nor would they point out that America uses semi-slave labor in other nations, nor would they point out that about 30% of America are slaves from Africa, Mexico, China, and other nations. Other nations would accept our insults, and buy millions of lousy WinCARs. 
 

The executives of the Apple Car Company would respond by raising prices on the MacCar to the point at which a complete MacCar with accessories is about twice the price of a Microsoft DOSCar. This would bring tremendous profits to the Apple company. But rather than spend the money wisely, the Apple executives would take the profit as personal income. For several years they would be among of the world's highest paid executives.

The Microsoft Car Company would react to the MacCar by developing an imitation of the MacCar, which they would call a “WinCar”. But due to lousy management and their inability to attract engineers with talent, the WinCars would be inferior imitations of MacCars, even after 15 years of struggling. Billions of our dollars would be wasted by Microsoft on the creation of this inferior imitation of a MacCar; money that could have been spend on productive activities.

Although most consumers would prefer the MacCar, most consumers would decide to suffer with a lower priced WinCar. The end result would be that the Microsoft Car Company would become the world's biggest car company; not because their cars were the best, but rather because their primary competitor was so greedy.