Greg Neill wrote:

The Robertson drive screws are ubiquitous in Canada where
they were first made (in 1908) and patented. They are less
so in the U.S. due to the fact that, after one business
fiasco with licensing the right to manufacture to a third
party in England, Robertson refused to license it to any
one else, including Ford in the U.S. Ford would not adopt
any screw for its production lines for which it could not
guarantee unbroken availability, despite the fact that the
screw proved to save considerable time in the production
of cars. So, they never really caught on there like they
did in Canada.


They're catching on. I recently had my deck surface replaced, and nearly
all the screws are square drive. (The remainder are Torx.) It's the
first use I've seen of them here. They're readily available now at Home
Depot and, I assume, other DIY stores.

Roy Lewallen, W7EL