The very best in obsolete and failed technology...

Jesus I'm guilty to having lots if these devices.
Half dozen different psion, even had the gps plug ins.
Minitel, unison, mini disc, neo geo, laser disc, etc

Some one earlier said that the cd was technical superior than the mini disc, but they forgot that the cd is inferior to the vinyl as it cuts off frequencies.

Anyone remember the golf holes that all the CEOs had.. The ones that returned the ball

cml387 wrote: »

Don't agree about CD cutting off frequencies.
What you have with vinyl is the original sound of the music,converted to grooves in a record, with no digital hanky panky in between.
And of course the pops and clicks where you dropped the stylus when drunk but hey..

http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/question487.htm
Technically better
For storage they don't play sounds over 44hz or a frequency I can't quite remember, they say its outside the human hearing range. But people argue that you can pick up through sensoray

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

No that's not the story.

The real story is that because of anti-monopoly laws IBM had to buy in the OS for it's PC's

CP/M was the leading choice but a flying lesson / batshít insane licensing costs and conditions put paid to that so they asked Microsoft who then sold them DOS. Microsoft then went out and bought DOS from Seattle University, except they called it QDOS = Quick and Dirty Operating System.

So now Microsoft and IBM are in bed together so they look at co-developing a graphical OS that didn't run on DOS. GEM already had a graphical OS for the PC BTW. Anyway there was a falling out so IBM went one way and Microsoft bought in the development team from Digital who had worked on VAX. If you've watched 2001 you'll know that HAL is one letter away from IBM in exactly the same way that VAX is one letter away from WNT Windows NT.

The real problem with OS/2 and DrDOS and PC DOS and even CP/M was that Microsoft stitched up the PC makers so they had to pay a royalty for DOS on every computer sold regardless of which OS it had. DOS was effectively free on a new machine (since it had to be paid for regardless) but you had to pay extra for the others

Program compatibility was another issue "DOS ain't done till Lotus won't run"

The early days was a mess of illegal actions, companies paid fines out of the profits made once the competition had been killed off. Look at Samsung vs. Apple today. Fines are huge but the profits are even bigger so it's sell now and worry later.

VAX stands for Virtual Address Extension, coined long before Windows was a glint in Bill Gates' eye (in 1977 to be precise).

circadian wrote: »

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


Betamax. Easily the biggest tech flop of all time.

not at all , they were technically superior to VHS , and were used by tv stations and news channels until fairly recently , most if not all mobile recording devices used by the likes of CNN SKY and RTE would have been a Sony Betamax recorder.

VHS killed betmax in the home market , but the television industry loved it.

Michael D Not Higgins wrote: »

True but to get equivalent specs for the computer as a laptop I would have had to spend twice as much.

People buy laptops when they don't need portability and end up overspending. I wouldn't consider desktops obsolete in any case.

You're again forgetting that the average Joe are now not as likely to buy a desktop. I've even seen more and more desktops pop up in cash converters, charity shops etc. since the past few years despite not having any problems with them.

A desktop will be faster and much cheaper than a laptop, along with the benefits of building your own, but it is still delegated to the more enthusiast market rather than the average consumer. With POS World advertising cheap laptops with some meaningless "advantage" such as craploads of RAM or HDD space, yet have woeful construction quality, bloatware and crippled specs on everything else, people will buy it up.

Czarcasm wrote: »

I wouldn't call desktops or CRT monitors a failure though, they're around donkeys at this stage (I'm loathe to part with my 19" CRT even though I use a pair of 42" LCD TVs for monitors nowadays! ), how about the netbook though? Now there was a flash in the pan failure! One minute they're the greatest thing since sliced pan, the next thing they're replaced by tablets, which you can write even less on!

I gave the young lad my netbook as it was just about the right keyboard size and weight as a mini-laptop for him instead of that V-tech toy crap, and I refuse to use a tablet. Again, bought one for the young lad, they're handy for document reviewing, that's about it, best pray you don't have to make any edits though!

CRTs did fail at one thing - they were bloody massive, weighed a lot and were power inefficient. Not to mention slightly dangerous to repair and potential health issues (CRTs had to be leaded to prevent X-Rays coming out, for example). Many were often not as sharp as their LCD counterparts either. For this reason, I can't blame people moving to LCD. I don't think there's any company who still produces CRTs nowadays, anyway.

That said, I am still fond of CRTs since they allowed you to change resolution without worries up upsampling, accurate colour and fast refresh rates/minimal latency without ghosting. It is also a weird and cool technology in my book. I've 3 of them in my room for those reasons alone! :cool:

As for netbooks, I did like them and owned a few. They haven't really failed - just that tablets sadly absolutely destroyed them for most people.

nlgbbbblth wrote: »

I first heard the "vinyl will soon be dead" remark back in 1986.

I am still waiting.

The format's lowest ebb was 1993 - just 300,000 new LPs sold in the US.
In 2013 it was 6,000,000.

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 !!!

josip wrote: »

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

josip wrote: »

Jaysus, how could I have forgotten my discman in the above list?

Czarcasm wrote: »

... how about the netbook though? Now there was a flash in the pan failure! One minute they're the greatest thing since sliced pan, the next thing they're replaced by tablets, which you can write even less on! ...

Yep, I had a netbook too, but it was a Dell Mini 9/10 running Windows.
I went to went to do UAT with one of the UK Telcos shortly after I got it during the winter.
The UK guy looked puzzled when I showed up without a laptop bag.
I'm not sure his expressin improved any when I reached inside the pocket of my coat and took out "Tom Thumb".
I was blazing a trail into the future I was.

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

By implication everything that tried to replace it failed.

The Space Shuttle.

All the other types of bikes , except specialised bikes optimised for one task.

Like I said "If it works it's obsolete" we live in an age where there is change for changes sake.

Now often do new products have problems that weren't there in the original version.

Stuff like the Click Of Death in later Iomega Zip Drives.

Any number of hard drives that are less reliable than older models.

The capacitor plague that means a lot of the electronic equipment from the mid 90's to a few years ago won't live as long as older stuff.

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

kumate_champ07 wrote: »

anyone remember palmpilots?

your post became obsolete about 6 pages ago:p

Dravokivich wrote: »

The problem with mini disc was it came avail here late into its production run. It was in japan and the usa throughout the 90's. You see one in last action hero.

I don't think that was the problem, it was here in the early 90s, but it was too expensive and didn't have much support from the big record industry companies, not keen on the idea of easy cd quality recording when margins on CDs were huge. Only a very limited number of bands and companies published to minidisc, some made a point of it, but stores didn't stock stuff they knew the couldn't sell as few people had players, people were replacing their records with cds and tapes were still the budget and portable option. By the time Sony reduced prices, CD-rs were becoming dirt cheap and mp3s appearing, and then after Rio, came iPod. The Walkman was dead, long live the ipod iphone ...