🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1991May3.224342.9567@sugar.hackercorp.com> jasona@sugar.hackercorp.com (Jason Asbahr) writes:
+If Ford had done this in the early days, all other manufacturers would
+have had to come up with something completely different.  (Take a minute
+to picture alternate ideas -- amusing!)  Since Ford dominated most of the
+market and most drivers learned to drive in Ford automobiles, companies

There are differences between the concept and implementations. The
steering wheel is a concept, the particular implimentation is
patentable given the uniqueness of the design. There are
alternatives, check out the steering mechanism for a bulldozer.

Similarly the manual shift pattern for a stick shift on the floor.
For 4-speed with reverse, there are a variety of ways to implement
the H pattern and reverse. One ancient way to get to reverse was a
lever on the shift that had to be pulled up to allow the stick to
move to the reverse position. Since that was combersome, various
methods were devised, push down and to the right, push down and to
the left, etc.

The point is that yes, once one became familiar with a particular
manufacturer's system one was reluctant to go to another and
different method. I also believe that the early days of the
automobile were filled with suits and eventually you have the big 3
that you see today. Then came the Japanese, with a 'different'
idea.
-- 

John Clark
jclark@ucsd.edu