Re: I've seen things you people wouldn't believe...

In message <memo.20080408112408.2232E@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>, Paul 
Dormer <prd@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> writes
>In article <i44lv3ln8gueq3bhrm6ad470t9ve8um05l@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
>fairportfan@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 (mike weber) wrote:
>
>>
>> I siad "My god - that was a C5!"
>>
>> My buddies, none of whom had looked up in time to see it, said
>various
>> things which boiled down to "You're crazy - the C5 isn't operational
>> yet."
>
>To me, C5 automatically means the Sinclair C5, the Segway of its day.
>I actually saw one on the road once:
>
>http://www.sinclairc5.com/

When they were launched I happened to ask my local motorbike service 
place (who also did most of the AA bike repairs in London) about them, 
and they fell about laughing. Nobody was willing to service them, 
because the cost of stocking up on the parts would have been 
prohibitive; amongst other things, all three wheels were different; one 
of the rear wheels held the brake, the other had an inner gear (which 
was notoriously short lived) that connected to the motor, the front one 
was incompatible with both and the tyres were non-standard. Lots of 
other problems, which put together meant that nobody wanted to work on 
them because they wouldn't be able to guarantee their workmanship

Several years later I visited one of the centres for teacher and 
technician training in London, and noticed that there was one under the 
stairs in the lobby. They also had a big display of old scientific 
equipment on show, all sorts of weird stuff that was no longer in use, 
and everyone assumed that it was part of the display. But on my second 
or third visit there I asked - it turned out that one of the technicians 
based there had bought the thing, hadn't used it much, then the motor 
burned out after a few hundred miles, by which time Sinclair had already 
gone out of business. He decided it wasn't worth fixing, his wife wanted 
it out of the way, so he just left it there on the assumption that 
sooner or later he'd think of something to do with it. As far as I know 
he never did.
-- 
Marcus L. Rowland             http://www.forgottenfutures.com/
LJ:ffutures     http://homepage.ntlworld.com/forgottenfutures/
   Forgotten Futures - The Scientific Romance Role Playing Game
   Diana: Warrior Princess  &   Elvis: The Legendary Tours
   The Original Flatland Role Playing Game