LETTERS: IF CARS WERE LIKE COMPUTERS...

To the editor:

Back in March, Bill Gates of Microsoft testified before a congressional committee that if automobiles had enjoyed the same gains in productivity that computers have achieved in the last 10 years, then we'd all be driving $25 cars that get 1,000 miles to the gallon. True, perhaps, but Gates left out a few crucial points in the analogy. In fact, if cars were PCs:* Your card would crash two or three times a day, sometimes just sitting in park.* Apple would make a solar-powered, highly reliable car that would be twice as easy to drive, but it would only run on 10 percent of the roads.* Every time the transportation department built a new road, we'd have to buy new cars to travel on it.* Then, if we bought a new car, the brake, accelerator and steering wheel would all be in different places.* Every time you put your foot on the brake, a message window would pop up on the dashboard and say: Are you sure? Yes/No.* Once or twice a week your car would stall in the middle of the freeway.* Then you would have to call a mechanic in another city who would tell you over the phone how to remove and reinstall the engine.

RALPH E. FLORI SR.

Cape Girardeau