John Kilopascal wrote in USMA 21445 >2002-07-31 > >For the most part, computer equipment is already made metric, it is just >marketed as FFU. At least monitors use millimetre dot pitch and the >so-called 3.5 inch floppy is really 94 mm x 90 mm x 3.3 mm. > >This is all due to US practice. This practice would end if the rest of the >world would tell the US that products, when sold in their countries, must >be described in metric only. If the US wants to use FFU in their own >borders, then do so, but not outside. > >Can you imagine how the US would react to such a demand? Pissed-off would >be putting it mildly. This is why the US is in no big hurry to change. >Presently they can export any product without need to metricate the product >or the labelling. If the world was more demanding that American products be >fully metric when sold outside the US, then metrication might be a topic the >government might listen to. > >John
Most US industries such as automobiles, agriculural machinery, and electronics that do a world-wide export business are already metric. That is because, outside of the USA, mechanics would not be able to maintain their products if they were inch-based since the mechanics did not have inch wrenches. Manufacturing in metric units was somewhat more efficient, and although American mechanics had to buy metric wrenches, they could afford to buy them. For sales literature and maintenance in USA, all measurements were translated to inches. It was not the policy of the manufacturers to campaign for the country to convert to metric because more people might have been annoyed than have approved. Joseph B.Reid 17 Glebe Road West Toronto M5P 1C8 Tel. 416 486-6071
