If Cray made toasters, they would cost $16 million but would be
faster than any other single-slice toaster in the world.
If DEC made toasters... they made good toasters in the '70s, didn't
they?
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 The Franklin Mint made toasters, every month you would receive
another lovely hand-crafted piece of your authentic Civil War
pewter toaster.
If Hewlett-Packard made toasters, they would market the Reverse
Polish 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 K-Tel sold toasters, they would not be available in stores, and
you would get a free set of Ginsu knives with each one.
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 have to pay for it anyway. Toaster'95 would
weigh 15,000 pounds (hence requiring a reinforced steel counter
top), 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 wanted 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 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 Radio Shack made toasters, the staff would sell you a toaster,
but not know anything about it. Or you could by all the parts to
build your own toaster.
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 Sony made toasters, their "Personal Toasting Device", which
would be barely larger than the single piece of bread it is meant
to toast, can be conveniently attached to your belt.
If Thinking Machines made toasters, you would be able to toast
64,000,000 pieces of bread at the same time.
If Timex made toasters, they would be cheap and small
quartz-crystal wrist toasters that take a licking and keep on
toasting.