The very best in obsolete and failed technology...

CJhaughey

I had one of those mini TV's it was a JVC that had an AM/FM/LW receiver and a tape deck as well as the tiny B&W screen, it also had a switch that could invert the picture.
Anyone remember golfball typewriters? They had a very short lifespan, word processors killed them shortly after they were launched.

CJhaughey

CJhaughey wrote: »

I had one of those mini TV's it was a JVC that had an AM/FM/LW receiver and a tape deck as well as the tiny B&W screen, it also had a switch that could invert the picture.
Anyone remember golfball typewriters? They had a very short lifespan, word processors killed them shortly after they were launched.

I bet that it was the Belgian model, you needed that switch to watch French TV which used the opposite modulation to everyone else.

Dempsey

wil wrote: »

There seems to be an ever decreasing cycle time from introduction to obsolescence. Stuff that lasts too long eventually stops selling.
Built in unreliability could even be a marketing strategy

Thats been going on since the lightbulb.

Its called 'planned obsolescence'.

Dempsey

Dempsey wrote: »

Thats been going on since the lightbulb.

Its called 'planned obsolescence'.

Yes but most of the stuff here went away because of "perceived Obsolescence", in other words people dumped them because they were "so last year" despite the fact that they could do what they were intended to do every bit as well as the newer version (in most cases).

CJhaughey

Deleted User wrote: »

I bet that it was the Belgian model, you needed that switch to watch French TV which used the opposite modulation to everyone else.

I don't know what market it was made for but the build quality of the Japanese stuff then was unbelievable.
There was a tiny glare screen that fitted over the CRT that was made of aluminium and had folded away with tiny springs so that you could just flip a switch and it would spring out.
Its probably still working somewhere.
3 obsolete technologies in one machine!

nlgbbbblth

dj jarvis wrote: »

and sales in Europe are climbing year on year

and for this you can thank DJ's for keeping alive and giving it the kick start in the mid 90's , with all the "Superstar" dj's doing the rounds , every kid had a set of 1210's in their bed room , and they needed vinyl to play with, it went mainstream again , a new generation of music lovers with decks - im looking at 2 pair of them right now !!!

or KAMs, Aristons, Vestax etc.

I sell records from time to time [usually duplicates / spare copies] and it's 1990s LPs on major labels that are in serious demand.

syklops

CJhaughey wrote: »

I don't know what market it was made for but the build quality of the Japanese stuff then was unbelievable.
There was a tiny glare screen that fitted over the CRT that was made of aluminium and had folded away with tiny springs so that you could just flip a switch and it would spring out.
Its probably still working somewhere.
3 obsolete technologies in one machine!

Speaking of obsolete, its CJ Haughey everyone!

I have 2 minidisc players one which is my first one is a very beautiful looking Aiwa AMHx30, in brushed aluminium. The other is a banged up AIWA, not sure of the model but it records, the first only plays. At ~15 years old the first still looks gorgeous. Don't use it though.

I got a Creative Zen vision M for my birthday a few years ago. Best birthday present I ever got. The number one annoying thing about it was you couldnt just copy media onto it and play it, you had to use the proprietary software to convert videos to the proprietary aspect ratio. Made copying video a pain in the ass. Also converting using ffmpeg took ages and didnt always work. Got my smartphone and havn't used it since.

sligojoek

Back in the 70s my father was selling a car and decided to take out the SHARP 8 track tape player because it might be worth a few bob in years to come. He left it on the ground and went into the house to get something. In the meantime my mother decided to go to the shop for fags and reversed over it. There was war in the house for days.

I read through about half the posts so far and see no mention of the ZUNE. A friend of mine got me a 30GB one in 04 or 05. I broke the screen after 6 months and a new one was about 200 quid at the time. My daughter now uses it as an ext hard drive for her photos.

5uspect

wendell borton wrote: »

OK it was crap, but how about another tupelov the tu-95.
Despite being a 50's design and prop driven it can match the speed of modern jets and going to be in service until 2040.

The tu-95 is a jet... and has been around for just as long as the B-52.

Dempsey

5uspect wrote: »

The tu-95 is a jet... and has been around for just as long as the B-52.

Tu-95 is prop driven

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-95

5uspect

Dempsey wrote: »

Tu-95 is prop driven

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-95

No, it's a turboprop, which is a jet engine with a big prop bolted onto the front, similar to the turbofans you find on modern Airliners except with an added bypass shroud.

Dempsey

5uspect wrote: »

No, it's a turboprop, which is a jet engine with a big prop bolted onto the front, similar to the turbofans you find on modern Airliners except with an added bypass shroud.

No, its not. If you want to get pedantic, Jet engines exhaust provides enough thrust for propulsion. The exhaust of a turbo prop doesnt produce anywhere near enough.

Czarcasm

Is anyone else still struggling to get their head around the fact that Concordski was a real jet and not just a made up Russian rip-off by tagging "ski" on the end of Concorde?

Tokyo

Czarcasm wrote: »

Is anyone else still struggling to get their head around the fact that Concordski was a real jet and not just a made up Russian rip-off by tagging "ski" on the end of Concorde?

It's not all they ripped off - pretty sure Aeroflot at the time were caught stealing Concorde design plans.....

syklops

Czarcasm wrote: »

Is anyone else still struggling to get their head around the fact that Concordski was a real jet and not just a made up Russian rip-off by tagging "ski" on the end of Concorde?

Im more struggling with the fact that a commercial aircraft built in the 60s holds the record for being the fastest commercial jet and when retired was not replaced with something that went the same speed or faster.

Anti masturbation devices haven’t yet raised any head yet, so cream it!
http://www.buzzfeed.com/copyranter/male-anti-masturbation-devices

Czarcasm

syklops wrote: »

Im more struggling with the fact that a commercial aircraft built in the 60s holds the record for being the fastest commercial jet and when retired was not replaced with something that went the same speed or faster.

I remember reading in "Quest" (a science publication in the 90's) that when the Concorde was in the air, oh jesus what is it now - you could place a book in the open fissures as the plane stretched or something, and when the plane was landing, the fissure would close up again, book gone! Of course you could always retrieve it on the return journey

But yeah, I imagine they set a lot of records in the 60's and 70's that will never be broken because of safety concerns and so on, I mean, does anyone want to mention the moon landings? They were a bit of a flash in the pan seeing as we haven't been back since...


*cough*faked*cough* :pac:

syklops

Czarcasm wrote: »

I remember reading in "Quest" (a science publication in the 90's) that when the Concorde was in the air, oh jesus what is it now - you could place a book in the open fissures as the plane stretched or something, and when the plane was landing, the fissure would close up again, book gone! Of course you could always retrieve it on the return journey

But yeah, I imagine they set a lot of records in the 60's and 70's that will never be broken because of safety concerns and so on, I mean, does anyone want to mention the moon landings? They were a bit of a flash in the pan seeing as we haven't been back since...


*cough*faked*cough* :pac:

Funny you mention the moon landings I was thinking about Apollo 13 earlier. It was surprisingly low tech. An awful lot of the calculations were done by hand. Thay had a row of guys in a line doing the same math, and if they all agreed then it was correct.

Then computers came along and management became obsessed with computer based timesheeting systems, they fired the five guys, and the rest of NASA have been spending thousands of man-hours filling in their timesheets so we have not made it to Mars yet.

I have a pet-peeve about timesheets.

syklops

syklops wrote: »

Funny you mention the moon landings I was thinking about Apollo 13 earlier. It was surprisingly low tech. An awful lot of the calculations were done by hand. Thay had a row of guys in a line doing the same math, and if they all agreed then it was correct.

Then computers came along and management became obsessed with computer based timesheeting systems, they fired the five guys, and the rest of NASA have been spending thousands of man-hours filling in their timesheets so we have not made it to Mars yet.

I have a pet-peeve about timesheets.

I think that the space shuttle had five computers doing the calculations, so if more than three came up with the same answer then it was taken as correct.

If all five had different answers then it would have resulted in brown trousers!

Tokyo

Czarcasm wrote: »

I remember reading in "Quest" (a science publication in the 90's) that when the Concorde was in the air, oh jesus what is it now - you could place a book in the open fissures as the plane stretched or something, and when the plane was landing, the fissure would close up again, book gone! Of course you could always retrieve it on the return journey

CLose enough In flight, friction would heat the plane enough that it would get longer by about a foot over the length of the aircraft - this would open up a gap between the flight console and the bulkhead. Any member of the crew unlucky enough to leave their cap or similar down on the console during flight would often find that they wouldn't be able to retrieve it on the ground

SpaceTime

The "Payphone"

I ran out of batteries the other day and was faced with having to use a "pay phone".

1) I had no idea how to put the coins in. They seem to have installed some kind of frustration device on the coin slot.

2) It seems to cost about €2.00 to make a call!!

3) I couldn't remember anybody's phone numbers as they're all stored in my phone.

4) It smelt funny and I didn't want to let it touch my ear!

SpaceTime

SpaceTime wrote: »

I ran out of batteries the other day and was faced with having to use a "pay phone".

1) I had no idea how to put the coins in. They seem to have installed some kind of frustration device on the coin slot.

2) It seems to cost about €2.00 to make a call!!

3) I couldn't remember anybody's phone numbers as they're all stored in my phone.

4) It smelt funny and I didn't want to let it touch my ear!

You were lucky to find one, they're almost obsolete these days.

bobwilliams

I bought one of these fleshlight things on line,what a waste,i can't even get the helmet of it up me arse,

Capt'n Midnight

Irish Steve wrote: »

No, just not programmed in a way that prevented the challenges, they are much quicker, easier to use, cheaper to manage, and took the angst out of the results, oh what a shame for the politicians, no drama to milk and get screen time from.

The challenges included being able to tell which way people voted by eavesdropping remotely, easily falsifying the results. The machines had no decent physical , electrical , electronic or computational security

syklops

bobwilliams wrote: »

I bought one of these fleshlight things on line,what a waste,i can't even get the helmet of it up me arse,

I'm not sure an inability to read a product description constitutes an obsolete technology.

You spent 70+ quid on something to put up there? Why not visit your local green grocer?

Capt'n Midnight

wil wrote: »

There seems to be an ever decreasing cycle time from introduction to obsolescence. Stuff that lasts too long eventually stops selling.
Built in unreliability could even be a marketing strategy

You don't need to build in unreliability in products like RAM / CPU's / LEDs / Solar panels / Hard drives where the performance for unit price improves at 50% ever 18 months or so


Unfortunately marketing persons don''t understand that cost cutting can destroy a brand name and it will take a very long time to build it up again , but the marketing persons have their bonuses so what do they care ?

Capt'n Midnight

syklops wrote: »

Im more struggling with the fact that a commercial aircraft built in the 60s holds the record for being the fastest commercial jet and when retired was not replaced with something that went the same speed or faster.

blame the Americans

they wanted Mach 3 , because it's 1 higher than Mach 2.

more of the "not invented here" syndrome

completely forgetting that a plane three times faster would cost a lot more than three times as much AND that since each flight took a third of the time you'd only need a third as many planes

jmcc

Irish Steve wrote: »

No, just not programmed in a way that prevented the challenges, they are much quicker, easier to use, cheaper to manage, and took the angst out of the results, oh what a shame for the politicians, no drama to milk and get screen time from.

Technically speaking, the security model for the stinking pile of rip-off crap that the Irish government "bought" was designed by pondscum intellects who hadn't a clue about technological security. A paper sticker on a box is not anti-tamper protection. Just to explain it simply for you: there was no security on those over priced technological turds.

Regards...jmcc

wil

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

You don't need to build in unreliability in products like RAM / CPU's / LEDs / Solar panels / Hard drives where the performance for unit price improves at 50% ever 18 months or so


Unfortunately marketing persons don''t understand that cost cutting can destroy a brand name and it will take a very long time to build it up again , but the marketing persons have their bonuses so what do they care ?

that one major exception - we should all be rocking 10Tb portables if it wasn't for a few drops of rain and a near cartelle in the aftermath. HDs were cheaper per Tb over 2 years ago. And on occasion RAM was also commoditised. Remember the great RAM hoist a while back.

For examples of stuff that lasted too long as far as manufacturers were concerned - big old CRT tvs, 12 inch portable crts - they outlast their modern counterparts by at least 20 years and changed hands several times on the s/h market. Similarly old hifi separates - sound quality would still beat most of todays plastic boxes.
Priorities change and hifi and hi-def gets subverted by mp3 and 4inch smartphones for personal media consumption.


But to the obsolete I'll add the Casio calculator watch

Czarcasm

wil wrote: »

that one major exception - we should all be rocking 10Tb portables if it wasn't for a few drops of rain and a near cartelle in the aftermath. HDs were cheaper per Tb over 2 years ago. And on occasion RAM was also commoditised. Remember the great RAM hoist a while back.

For examples of stuff that lasted too long as far as manufacturers were concerned - big old CRT tvs, 12 inch portable crts - they outlast their modern counterparts by at least 20 years and changed hands several times on the s/h market. Similarly old hifi separates - sound quality would still beat most of todays plastic boxes.
Priorities change and hifi and hi-def gets subverted by mp3 and 4inch smartphones for personal media consumption.


But to the obsolete I'll add the Casio calculator watch

Do go on...

I remember alright the Thai earthquake or was it a typhoon and trying to source parts that didn't make you feel like you'd bought a bicycle without a saddle, the price of stuff went through the roof - RAM, hard drives, I think processors were ok but they were always pricey, basically anything coming from Malaysia, scare, and shocking dear (remember walking into PissyWorld and seeing a sign - "One hard drive per customer"!), and then there was that whole business later on with a worldwide shortage of LCD panels...

Anyone remember the "exploding laptop" batteries?