Combo (pronounced kom-boh)
(1) In informal use, a small jazz or dance band (as
distinct from a big band).
(2) In informal use, many forms of combined items
(bundled “meal deals”; products sold with a collection of options offered at a
nominal discount against the price calculated on the basis of the extended
value etc).
(3) In informal use, to combine.
(4) A sequence of actions combined as one for certain
purposes.
(5) In informal use, the combination (the numerical
sequence) of a combination lock.
(6) In video gaming, an action composed of a sequence of
simpler actions, especially a composite attacking move in a fighting game; two
or more game-play elements (characters, items, options etc) which are powerful
when used together.
(7) In collectible card games, a strategy under which the
objective is to win by playing a specific combination of cards (or similar), usually
in a single play.
(8) In historic Australian (derogatory) slang, a white man
(1) who lives among Aboriginal people and adopts Aboriginal culture or (2) has
entered into an ongoing sexual relationship with an Aboriginal woman or (3) has
taken an Aboriginal wife, usually in a common-law marriage (all now archaic).
(9) In computing (in the design of graphical user
interfaces (GUI)), in the informal use “combo box” (A GUI widget that is a
combination of a dropdown list or list box and a single-line textbox, allowing
the user either to type a value directly into the control or choose from the
list of existing options).
1924: A clipping of comb(ination) + -o. Combination (the act of combining, the state
of being combined or the result of combining) was from the Middle English combinacioun & combynacyoun, from the Old French combination, from the Late Latin combīnātiō. The colloquial -o suffix (wino, ammo, combo,
kiddo et al) appears widely in English but is most common in Australia where in
certain sub-cultures it appears to be obligatory (they have names like Shaneo,
Toddo, Wayneo etc). The first use was of
small jazz groups and dance bands and was used to differentiate the smaller
ensembles from the then popular “big bands”, the implication also that while combos
were often ad-hoc things with the membership varying from evening to evening
whereas big bands had a more stable (usually salaried) membership and usually
took the name of the band leader. Combo
is a noun, comboing & comboed are verbs and comboable is an adjective; the noun
plural is combos or comboes.
The VW Kombi and the Samba
1951 VW Kombi.
Although there was for years in English-speaking
markets something of a tendency to call all the Volkswagen Type 2s Kombis, the
Kombi was just one configuration in a range which eventually extended beyond a
dozen distinct types. Kombi was a
clipping of the German Kombinationskraftwagen
(combination motor vehicle), another of those compound nouns at which they
excel. The Kombi coachwork featured side
windows and removable seats in the rear compartment, permitting the thing thus
to be used either for passengers, freight or a combination of the two. Other types in the range included pure
delivery vans (no rear seats) with a variety of door options, a high-roof
version best suited to transporting cargo which was bulky but not especially
heavy, pick-ups (Transporters) with either a single or double passenger cabin
and the other classic, the Microbus, intended purely for people and thus
configured with fixed seats in the rear.
It was the Microbus which made its mark with the US surfing community in
the 1960s and it became identified with the counter culture, something perhaps
assisted by its large, flat surfaces which lent themselves to the psychedelic paint
schemes associated with the era.
Not a Kombi: 1959 VW Microbus Deluxe (Samba).
The Microbus was also offered (between 1951-1966) in a “Deluxe”
version which featured both a folding fabric sunroof and some unusual “skylight”
windows which followed the curve of sides of the roof. Available in 21 & 23 window versions, these
are now highly collectable and such is the attraction there’s something of a cottage
industry in converting Microbuses to the be-windowed specification but it’s
difficult exactly to emulate the originals, the best of which can command
several times the price of a fake (a perfectly restored one in 2017 selling at
auction in the US for US$302,000). Such
was the susceptibility to rust, the survival rate wasn’t high and many led a hard
life when new, popular with the tour guides who would conduct bus-loads of visitors
on (slow) tours of the Alps, the sunroof & skylights ideal for gazing at
the peaks. To add to the mood, a dashboard-mounted
valve radio was available as an option.
The Microbus Deluxe is actually rarely referred to as such, being almost
universally called the “Samba” and the origin of that in uncertain. One theory is that it’s a borrowing from the Brazilian
dance and musical genre that is associated with things lively, colorful, and
celebratory, the link being that as well as the sunroof and windows, the Deluxe
had more luxurious interior appointments, came usually in bright two-tone paint
(other Type 2s were usually more drably finished) and featured lashings of external
chrome. It’s an attractive story but
some prefer something more Germanic: Samba as the acronym for the business-like
phrase Sonnendach-Ausführung mit
besonderem Armaturenbrett (sunroof version with special dashboard). However it happened, Samba was in colloquial
use by at least 1952 and became semi official in 1954 when the distributers in
the Netherlands added the word to their brochures. Production ended in July 1967 after almost
100,000 had been built.
The very existence of the VW Type 2 (the Beetle was
the Type 1) was an act of serendipity, one entrepreneurial dealer from the
Netherlands in 1947 noting during a visit to the factory the use of a rather
cobbled-together “pick-up” based on a Beetle chassis. With Europe in the throes of post-war rebuilding
and so much industrial production still disrupted, there was a shortage of such
vehicles and he sketched what would now be called a “forward control van” which
the factory agreed to develop. However, such
was the demand for the Beetle that it wasn’t until 1950 than production of the
Type 2 began and, despite the legend that the two share underpinnings, that’s only
partially true because to gain the necessary strength, a different floor plan
was required. Still, with many
mechanical components there was much interchangeably between Types 1 & 2, something
which added greatly to its appeal and it was instantly successful the first
generation staying in production until 1966 and although in most of the world
the classic air-cooled / rear-engine configuration was in subsequent decades
replaced, Type 2 in that specification were made in Brazil until 2013 and
although demand was still strong and the line was profitable, the country was the
last developed market in the world to introduce the safety regulation which had
seen the old Kombis go elsewhere extinct.
The South American line had been the last link with the Nazi’s Kdf-Wagen (which became the Beetle, the
first prototype of which dated from 1935, renamed to the snappier Volkswagen
(literally “people’s car”). Kdf (Kraft durch Freude, literally “Strength
Through Joy” was the Nazi state’s leisure organization which was involved in
everything from holiday resorts and cruise liners to the regulation of
workplaces (the classic Nazi “carrot & stick” approach) but it was also
used as a slogan an in that sense joy was compulsory and the state had ways to
punish those not thought sufficiently joyful.
Combo cards: 3Com Ethernet XL PCI 3c900 NIC (RJ45-AUI-BNC) (left), NVidia GPU (HDMI-VGA-DVI) (centre) & Startech AT (Advanced Technology (or ISA (Industry Standard Architecture)) 2S1P (2 x DB9 Serial-1 x DB25 Parallel) (right).
In personal computer hardware, combo devices have existed
almost as long as the industry. When,
with rather modest expectations, IBM released the PC-1 in 1981, it was a
US$5000 thing which even by the standards of the time was slow and not
particularly capable but (1) it was an IBM and that really gave it a legitimacy
no other name could and (2) it was delivered with lots of “open architecture”
slots which meant third-party manufacturers could (license and royalty-free)
produce all sorts of plug-in cards which extended the functionally. Soon, there were cards offering sound, support
for color monitors (IBM liked people to watch acid-green text displays because
they thought the PC-1 would be used mostly as a way to hook into their big
mainframes), higher definition graphics, additional ports and before long, connections
to the various adapters which could be used to connect to networks. Things advanced rapidly however and before
long there were various ways of connecting to stuff and such were the realities
of production-line economics that for manufacturers it often made sense to combine
different things on the one card. While
for example a manufacturer could offer three different NICs (network interface
cards) to support three different connections, what proved most popular was the
combo card which included the three most common types. The approach also suited customers who might
want an additional serial & parallel port but found a combo card with both
a better deal than buying two cards. The
approach is still followed today by the GPU (graphical processing unit) manufacturers
which have at various times offered combo card with ports for VGA (technically “Video
Graphics Array” but really long a reference to the pin-layout), HDMI (High Definition
Multimedia Interface), DVI (Digital Video Interface, of which there were many)
& DP (DisplayPort).
Just about any combination of stuff can be a combo including mix & match makeup. Lindsay Lohan also was part of Pepsi’s promotional campaign for a “dirty soda”, a concoction of Pepsi Cola & milk (Pilk), served with cookies; on the internet, opinion was divided. One of the most prolific users of combo seems to be the fast food industry, a combo meal (there are often variations) two or more components (typically a burger, a soda and fries) bundled at a price lower than purchasing the items separately. For the industry, the combos are a high profit item because they stimulate demand, increasing volume with only a marginal increase in labour costs.
Before the release of the Barbie movie in July 2023, it had probably never occurred to the industry there would one day be demand for a burger with hot-pink sauce but it’s now at Burger King, available as part of a combo meal. First to make the Barbie-themed meal available was Burger King Brazil, the combo including a cheeseburger topped with bacon bits and dressed with a hot pink sauce, said to have a “smoky” flavor. Also included is a pink vanilla milkshake with strawberry Nesquik powder mixed in and when the straw is put in, it’s topped with a pink frosted donut. Barbie being the star, the side order of “Ken’s potatoes” is just a plain order of fries, a sly nod to the “he’s just Ken” message.
No comments:
Post a Comment