The same happened with continuous computer paper in the era of the dot-matrix printer and the home computer. A4 sized continuous paper was clearly more expensive then the 11 and 12 inch * 210 mm (!!!!) paper sizes. But when the laser and inkjetprinters appeared, the piles and piles of inch-sized paper disappeared and were replaced by A4 once again. I had bought A4 continuous paper, but when I really had to set up pages on a dot-matrix printer linked to a Commodore 64 computer, I found out to my dismay, that I had to use 12 inch paper! I think that this size is unknown in the USA. But now I have an HP inkjet printer and use A4 paper once again. A hardly used box with about 800 sheets of 12 inch paper stands somewhere in a cupboard. The paper weight is expressed as 60 g/m2. For those people who still have a dot-matrix printer, the inch sizes are still available, but they are now stacked in the magazine, not in the shops. In that time there were OKI d-m printers at the university that would only accept 11 inch paper; the other ifp size was rejected by these devices.
Han . i----- Original Message ----- From: kilopascal To: U.S. Metric Association Sent: Saturday, 2002-02-09 17:47 Subject: [USMA:18086] 3 L milk cartons 2002-02-09 A few days ago, I went to the local Super K-mart, the only store in town selling the 3 L milk jugs. Just to keep everyone up-dated, they are still there, and to my surprise, the milk is cheaper (unit price) than the gallon and quart containers they are next to. At first, they were very expensive and people were turned away from them. Even articles in the newspaper at the time criticised the container for costing more. The milk is produced by Superior Dairy here in Ohio. I think the same carton used in New York was sold by Wegman's Dairy. I wonder if these cartons have ever expanded outside their initial markets. It would be nice if they took off enough to replace the gallon jug completely. Also, I noticed some of the Vaseline products, that a few years ago went to rational SI. I even checked the same products at Wal-mart. I don't remember the exact sizes, but it seems the products are neither rational in SI or FFU. What is odd, is that while Vaseline states its sizes in SI (FFU), the Wal-Mart clones (American Fare) states the contents in FFU (SI), the reverse. The one size that I did buy (American Fare), as it was cheaper than the Vaseline brand was stated as 24.5 FL OZ (725 mL). Even though 725 mL is fairly rational, the other sizes on the shelf were not that rational. Those of you who shop often may want to visit the aisle that sells these products and report back some of the other sizes. You'll see that both FFU and SI are both funny numbers. I wonder if they are packaged by weight and sold by volume, and that is why the numbers are funny. John
