Core work still going on 33 years later

Posted Oct 22, 2024 16:42 UTC (Tue) by paulj (subscriber, #341)
In reply to: Core work still going on 33 years later by farnz
Parent article: The long road to lazy preemption

I'm not familiar with old US cars. My dad has had a variety of old European cars. Mostly English, but he's had Citroen Traction-Avant too (which is one of the coolest looking cars ever IMO - and surprisingly modern in design and build). He had some kind of 1920s Rolls-Royce at one point, a Phantom I think - if only he'd kept that one, would be worth loads today (he loved swapping cars)! I don't remember the controls of that, I was little - though I don't remember it being weird per se. I could ask him. ;)

Core work still going on 33 years later

Posted Oct 22, 2024 16:50 UTC (Tue) by farnz (subscriber, #17727) [Link] (1 responses)

These were all models that my English grandfather had heard about as a child and really wanted at the time, but could never afford - he was a serious car nut.

But that does lead to a serious point; it isn't unusual for different countries to have kept different standards from the past, even though they "could" unify with the rest of the world. For example, on pedal cycles, some countries put the front brake on the left lever, while others put it on the right lever. Arguably, the only reason this didn't happen with the motor car is that we had a large crowd of ex-military drivers in the late 1940s who all knew the same standard no matter where in the world they were going back to, and so everyone settled on one standard.

Core work still going on 33 years later

Posted Oct 22, 2024 18:17 UTC (Tue) by joib (subscriber, #8541) [Link]

> it isn't unusual for different countries to have kept different standards from the past, even though they "could" unify with the rest of the world.

Case in point, the International System of Units (SI) is adopted by almost the entire world, except Myanmar, Liberia, and some other country whose name escapes me at the moment.