The very best in obsolete and failed technology...

Tokyo

I saw a post online earlier about technology that was available when I was younger, and it got me thinking about the technology that was thought of as the 'best' at the time, only to disappear off into the ether months later.

For me, it was definitely this - the Somy MZ-R909 Minidisc player:



I remember buying one of these back in the day, from O'Connors of Galway when it was still on Shop St. If I remember correctly, I think I paid £220 for it at the time - not a small sum of money. At the time all of my money was going towards getting me through college, but for some reason I had extra money at the time, and after a LOT of thought, decided to splurge on myself. It was going to solve all of my portable music problems - I'd be able to run and cycle while listening to music, no skipping, even had a nice remote with display that I could control the player with while leaving it in my pocket!

I spent hours copying CD's to minidisc, playing the whole CD with the MD player on record, then going through it afterwards and adding the track breaks. OR creating compilation minidiscs by meticulously recording one mp3 at a time from my computer.

No more than six months later, portable mp3 players hit the marketplace for the first time, and my minidisc player was obsolete... I think it sits in my desk drawer to this day. I often wonder what kids would think of it if given one today.

Anybody else have tech from the past sitting in a drawer or a box somewhere that was the best of the best for a sort time??

awec

I had one of those!

No idea where it is now, I remember that you had to use an optical cable to record onto the discs and so the only way I could do it was through the playstation.

Skylinehead

Pffft, amateurs. I still have one of these:

http://www.minidisc.org/dmd-1300.JPG

longhalloween

mike_ie wrote: »

I saw a post online earlier about technology that was available when I was younger, and it got me thinking about the technology that was thought of as the 'best' at the time, only to disappear off into the ether months later.

I had a minidisk player too, with a red laser optical cable :rolleyes:. Fortunately I got it free from an uncle who bought a mp3 player.

I upgraded to this: http://www.reevoo.com/p/creative-muvo-v100-512mb about a month before iPods took off.

I also spent an obscene amount of money on a Sony-Ericsson C902 because James Bond had it in Quantum of Solace. Again, just before touch screen smartphones became the norm.

What good is a 5Mega pixel camera with a 2" screen!?!?

rob316

I spent €300 on a minidisk player/recorder, think it was about 12/18 months later ipod came out :rolleyes:

Invested in hd-dvd also only for Blu-Ray to kill it dead.
edit: it was this one
http://www.av-land.co.uk/sony/mzn707/mzn707bluelrg.jpg

Mr. CooL ICE

I remember paying an extra £30 to buy a Nokia 3330 instead of a 3310 because I wanted WAP. What A Pileofcrap

Mint Sauce

awec wrote: »

I had one of those!

No idea where it is now, I remember that you had to use an optical cable to record onto the discs and so the only way I could do it was through the playstation.

I still do, and know where it is.

Tokyo

Skylinehead wrote: »

Pffft, amateurs. I still have one of these:

http://www.minidisc.org/dmd-1300.JPG

Hah - that was going to be my next purchase, once I had completed my minidisc archive to beat all archives... :rolleyes:

Thankfully I didn't have the time to splash out on one....

SPS1

Gamecube/Dreamcast.

O.A.P

A d.v.d recorder for something like 350 punts. It still under the Sky plus box and never gets used.

DublinWriter

Minidiscs were technically inferior to CDs.

Let's not forget Beta standard video tapes, Dolby Surround, DAT, and Video8.

Ruu

Computer mags in the mid 90s were advertising the next big thing to replace floppys, the Superdisk 120mb disk! My richer cousins had one. Didnt last too long. Cant believe the price we paid for a video recorder in the early 90s, around £220!

Stavros Murphy

Oldies will remember the Sinclair C5 - "A transport revolution". A mates Da bought one with the idea of commuting to work in it. The fact one of us kids didn't die laughing at the poor sod is a miracle. It got quietly bunged in the shed after one short trip. The segway is almost as un-cool...

Tokyo

And then there was the Iomga Zip Drive....



Back when I started college, and had access to the internet for the first time, the only way you could bring all of your midi files, FORTRAN code and ascii art home was though a 1.44Mb floppy. Enter the zip drive.... 100Mb of portable storage per disk, parallel port connection, was a dream come true.... for about a year...

mickdw

mike_ie wrote: »

And then there was the Iomga Zip Drive....



Back when I started college, and had access to the internet for the first time, the only way you could bring all of your midi files, FORTRAN code and ascii art home was though a 1.44Mb floppy. Enter the zip drive.... 100Mb of portable storage per disk, parallel port connection, was a dream come true.... for about a year...

That certainly had its use at the time though. It really was a fantastic improvement over a floppy. I remember telling someone that it could hold as much info as a big stack of floppy discs and they were amazed.

Michael D Not Higgins

I had a Creative Zen Portable Media Centre back around 2004. It could play movies on a 3.5'' screen and had a 20gb hard drive. Unfortunately it was over an inch thick and more again with the case on it.

I honestly don't know what most of the stuff mentioned on this thread is, a testament to it's impermanent nature.

DublinWriter

Stavros Murphy wrote: »

It got quietly bunged in the shed after one short trip.

Sinclair C5s change hands for not unsubstantial amounts of money these days.

Tokyo

Candie wrote: »

I honestly don't know what most of the stuff mentioned on this thread is, a testament to it's impermanent nature.

...or your age


In the words of Tommy Tiernan....

I don't know how many of you remember the whole taping songs off the radio crisis and how that nearly crippled the music industry! oh we had them worried then didn't we?!

Us in our bedrooms with our lunchbox sized tape recorders. Pressed up as close to the radio as physically possible while at the same time telling everyone downstairs to please be quiet! One thumb over the play button the other thumb over the record button - you had to use all your physical strength and co-ordination to get both buttons pressed down at the same time. There was some sort of special mickey spring loaded device on the record button if you got the timing wrong on that YOU COULD DISLOCATE YOUR SHOULDER!! Hovering over the two buttons waiting for the DJ to shut the **** up! And all for what? What was the cool music we wanted to download during the80's??

longhalloween

mickdw wrote: »

That certainly had its use at the time though. It really was a fantastic improvement over a floppy. I remember telling someone that it could hold as much info as a big stack of floppy discs and they were amazed.

I remember trying to explain to my Dad that there was 8 CD's worth of content on my mp3 player. We were amazed by the capacity.

I also remember struggling to fit a 2mb game onto several floppies. Those were the days.

circadian

SPS1 wrote: »

Gamecube/Dreamcast.

Both excellent machines. Dated yes, obsolete no. I wouldn't consider them failures either.


Betamax. Easily the biggest tech flop of all time.

SEPT 23 1989

Concorde

jmayo

Stavros Murphy wrote: »

Oldies will remember the Sinclair C5 - "A transport revolution". A mates Da bought one with the idea of commuting to work in it. The fact one of us kids didn't die laughing at the poor sod is a miracle. It got quietly bunged in the shed after one short trip. The segway is almost as un-cool...

Do you know if he still has it or was it dumped ?

jmayo

SEPT 23 1989 wrote: »

Concorde

Ehh how was that a failed technology ??
It's fly by wire system, electronic control of the engines and use of digital computers to control flight safety critical functions was the first of what is now commoneplace in airliners.

It hasn't been superceeded with anything better in terms of pure speed.

And it was in operation for over 26 years.

Adyx

I have the HD-DVD player add-on for the Xbox 360 along with 3 HD-DVDs. What's worse is I've never bothered watching them and I've barely used the Xbox.

Stavros Murphy

jmayo wrote: »

Do you know if he still has it or was it dumped ?

It's still in his shed, in mint condition, with the original wrapping...how the feck would I know?? That's 25 years ago ffs!

Sandwlch

SPS1 wrote: »

Gamecube

Still, it had a handle.

Sir Arthur Daley

mickdw wrote: »

That certainly had its use at the time though. It really was a fantastic improvement over a floppy.

Im sure there is a joke somewhere

josip

Bought a Sony minidisc, bought a Nokia "I need an exit" WAP phone, bought a 3D TV 2 years ago.

"Be not the first by whom the new is tried, nor yet the last to lay the old aside."

gugleguy

5th Generation iPod Nano. The only Nano to have a camera ( deleted in the 6th generation Nano) . This camera could only take ok ish videos. It could not take photos.

Mr Keek

Bought a Creative Zen Vision M and I was on the bus like a pimp watching movies and showing off.

About 6 months after I buying it, I saw a girl with a brand new iPod Touch for the first time... She was watching some videos and browsing her albums with cover flow, my jaw dropped, made my yoke look like a Cassette Walkman!

A week later I had the Vision M sold whiles it still had any shed of value/cool factor and got me the iPod touch.

BeerWolf

Got a Laser Disc player, along with a collection of Discs back in the early 90s --- was very good, even though it never became popular here in Europe.

Still got the lot of them.

jacksie66

This post has been deleted.

BeerWolf

Mr Keek wrote: »

Bought a Creative Zen Vision M and I was on the bus like a pimp watching movies and showing off.

About 6 months after I buying it, I saw a girl with a brand new iPod Touch for the first time... She was watching some videos and browsing her albums with cover flow, my jaw dropped, made my yoke look like a Cassette Walkman!

A week later I had the Vision M sold whiles it still had any shed of value/cool factor and got me the iPod touch.

Hah - still got that Creative Zen Vision: M meself. And I can tell you I felt the same way when I got it way back in 2005

moxin

In 2005 I bought one of the 60gb ipods, might have been 2nd gen or 3rd(only extra is the photos ability). Anyway it cost about $300 in Florida, have hardly used it in years. Waste of money but still works though

Firefox11

josip wrote: »

Bought a Sony minidisc, bought a Nokia "I need an exit" WAP phone, bought a 3D TV 2 years ago.

"Be not the first by whom the new is tried, nor yet the last to lay the old aside."

Ah yes...3D TV. Those stupid 3D glasses of mine are gathering dust in the drawer under the said TV as we speak.

Jimoslimos

mike_ie wrote: »

And then there was the Iomga Zip Drive....



Back when I started college, and had access to the internet for the first time, the only way you could bring all of your midi files, FORTRAN code and ascii art home was though a 1.44Mb floppy. Enter the zip drive.... 100Mb of portable storage per disk, parallel port connection, was a dream come true.... for about a year...

Pre-usb flash drive era Zip drives were actually very very useful. I think my external one held up to 250Mb - a not too insubstantial capacity when most hard drives were less than 1Gb.

Speaking of iomega products anyone remember the Clik - a PCMIA card storage device holding up to 40Mb
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/71MWX50PXPL._SX466_.gif

AllGunsBlazing

longhalloween wrote: »

I upgraded to this: http://www.reevoo.com/p/creative-muvo-v100-512mb about a month before iPods took off.

Still use mine, albeit the 1gig version. Does the job imo.

mad muffin

Them electronic voting doodads. Talk about bending over and spreading arse cheeks. :rolleyes:

antodeco

IrDa from phone to laptop, to connect at 9600kbps. Keeping the infrared beam in a straight line so not to knock off the connect. Then, you could buy the Nokia data cable (NKU-5?) That made it a little more reliable!

Bipolar Joe

longhalloween wrote: »

I upgraded to this: http://www.reevoo.com/p/creative-muvo-v100-512mb about a month before iPods took off.

I still use mine. No battery compartment. Been dropped, chewed on and flooded, thing is held together with tape and it still works.

bodhrandude

I remember back in 1982 my brother queued at a sale to get the first vcr for our household, it was a Philips V2000 and a great quality recording. The only problem being that the general public preferred Betamax and Vhs so the Philips V2000 brand went obsolete six months later. The unique thing with the Philips video cassettes was that you could record on both sides of the tape.

Legs.Eleven

Had a minidisc player that I used in college for my course. No idea where it is now.


I had a phone with WAP but what the feck was that about? What was it supposed to do?

Ruu

jacksie66 wrote: »

I had a Nokia Ngage. I actually enjoyed it, not when I used it as a phone though.
Also I had a nokia 3650. Bought it to be different. Good lord it was impossible to use. That feckin keypad..

Still have it, playing Fifa with your friends was deadly though! Had the Sims game for it as well. My brother got a virus on it, never worked right after that! :mad:

Wibbs

I had an Apple Newton*. Oh yes. Now in fairness I got it for nada(which at the time was some saving as they were near 900 quid IIRC). I remember showing it to my dad and telling him it you could write on the screen as normal. He asked me how much it cost, so I told him. He looked at me askance and then handed me a fiver and said go over to the newsagents and buy ten small notebooks, better value and they won't crash. The bastard. Newton OS though a failure in the market got much better over the few years it was out, though the initial rollout screwed it from the get go. The final ones could translate the written text very well and had all sorts of useful stuff built in. The OS itself was interesting too. Very different from the desktop OS vibe. Hell I still use an eMate from time to time.






*actually I got a first series one a few years back for nothing, still in its box with all the trimmings so held onto it for posterior like.

debabyjesus

SEPT 23 1989 wrote: »

Concorde

You had a concorde? Fair play.

The Th!ng

www.boards.ie

meep

mike_ie wrote: »

And then there was the Iomga Zip Drive....



Back when I started college, and had access to the internet for the first time, the only way you could bring all of your midi files, FORTRAN code and ascii art home was though a 1.44Mb floppy. Enter the zip drive.... 100Mb of portable storage per disk, parallel port connection, was a dream come true.... for about a year...

Ha, funny you should mention that. I'm not sure ZIPS qualify, according to OP criteria. They were wildly successful for a period. (though the follow up JAZ was a flop)

When zips first emerged, there was a competing product from Syquest called the EZ drive. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SyQuest_EZ_135_Drive).

Like betamax compared to VHS, the EZ format was superior in most ways; larger capacity, faster, more robust. I bought into it but of course ZIPs became the defacto standard and I was left with the better but ignored technology.

I went for HD DVD as well so have a bit of a habit in this.

Duggy747

Have a Creative Zen W that had 32GB storage I think before the ZIF drive died on it. Good solid battery life on it that got me about 4 / 5 hours on a single charge, doubled up as a radio and was handy to bring round to a mate's house and plug into the TV.

Didn't replace the drive for a few years because they were ridiculous prices at the time because they were used in the old iPods, when I eventually got one cheap that's when tablets started taking off.

Once I got a Nexus tablet it was relegated back to it's box but I'm sure I'll get use out of it again some day, they're still bloody expensive to buy despite being years old.

Duggy747

Duggy747 wrote: »

Have a Creative Zen W that had 32GB storage I think before the ZIF drive died on it. Good solid battery life on it that got me about 4 / 5 hours on a single charge, doubled up as a radio and was handy to bring round to a mate's house and plug into the TV.

Didn't replace the drive for a few years because they were ridiculous prices at the time because they were used in the old iPods, when I eventually got one cheap that's when tablets started taking off.

Once I got a Nexus tablet it was relegated back to it's box but I'm sure I'll get use out of it again some day, they're still bloody expensive to buy despite being years old.

have a nexus 7 and only ever find it useful to bring on holidays instead of bringing a laptop for browsing and movies. never use it besides that!

couple of excellent sh1te purchases for me

http://www.amazon.com/Archos-Wi-Fi-Portable-Media-Player/dp/B000S5UY2G
about 6 months later you could do everything that it does better on a phone

also some stupid box for a pc that could let you watch tv on it and record it. thing is that I already had a tv. never used it and about a year later you could buy a chinese version for 10 euro when I spent over a hundred on ebay. guy who sold it must have been delighted to get rid of it. still haven't thrown it out for some reason.

Tombo2001

From a different generation to you guys...

But I still recall my dad declaring to me that analog watches (ie with hands to tell the time) were dead; that digital watches had killed them and people would only buy digital watches in the future.....

Its funny how that one turned out.