The 25 worst Tech products of all time

[RedjackRyan]

http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,125772,pg,1,00.asp

[DaveM]

Who could possibly forget the Apple III, IIgs, and Lisa? Not to mention the Atari ST? Or the Commodore PET and VIC-20? Or (my personal favorite) the Sinclair (later Timex-Sinclair) ZX-80? No, it did not take a licking and keep on ticking.

One could probably make a list of far more than 25 DOS-based "IBM compatibles" that weren't.

Oh, and how about Hewlett-Packard scientific calculators, with their delightful Reverse Polish Notation (honestly, that's what it's called!)?

If one expands the tech horizon to include things that are not ocmputer-related, there are always two of my favorites: 8-track tape players and quadraphonic stereo.

[Bat]

Oh, and how about Hewlett-Packard scientific calculators, with their delightful Reverse Polish Notation (honestly, that's what it's called!)?


I had one, and absolutely Loved reverse Polish...so logical and so fast, very little room for error, and no stopping between types of calculations. It was very smart, and I have never learned to work the conventional types nearly as easily nor as accurately as reverse Polish. It takes a little getting used to in the beginning, but afterwards, you wonder why anyone would do it any other way. ..jmho, of course.

[Marcia Drummergal]

As soon as I saw Dave post about the "reverse-Polish" calculator, I KNEW Bat would respond to it! She still misses that calculator!!

Marcia ;)

[DaveM]

I believe they're still available...if not, there is of course always eBay....

[Eva]

Ha! The Iomega Zipdrive. I have one and luckily it works just fine... :)

Eva

[DaveM]

I, too, have a ZIP drive, which I bought back when 6 megs when a BIG HD and external HDs weren't available yet. I can't remember the last time I used it, and I doubt I could even backup my e-mail Inbox on one disk any more.

Still, it's a use for the parallel port....

[Kathleen Brogan]

What about the Recovac? The machine that you placed your Lps in to clean, and the static it caused put the original as well as brand new dirt and dust onto your vinyl. Well, it's true they said the worst technology, not the worst archeology!

[DaveM]

Most likely any K-Tel or Ronco product would be more than worthy, but you have to draw the line somewhere.

I still feel for everyone who got a Veg-o-Matic as a wedding gift. And then presumably had to use it when the giver was visiting.

[MadMusician]

Back when CD players first came out - I went out and bought a multiple disc Sony player. But I didn't trust it. I heard that DAT players would take over the market but we all had to wait for the price to come down. So I waited...

I never liked the sound quality of cassettes, they didn't make 8-tracks and I was having trouble finding albums. If I wanted to buy anything new, I was out of luck. So I finally broke down and bought the player along with a few CD's to get me started.

Playing the same album (Anita Baker), my ex-husband and I took turns flipping the switch between vinyl and CD while the other had their back turned. We both agreed that the LP was better sounding.

I didn't want to get stuck with music in more formats that would become obsolete so I returned the CD player and gave away the CD's. :rolleyes:

[DaveM]

I, too, remember when DAT was going to be "the next big thing". I suspected that it would flounder in the marketplace, however, due to concerns by music companies that it would be too easy to copy pre-recorded tapes. There was no such thing as a CD-R at the time, of course, and so....CDs flourished.

Something similar happened to the late, lamented Betamax, a more reliable, compact, and higher-resolution videotape format than its competitor, VHS. In that case, the VHS people had more money for advertising and I believe Sony tried to play the Apple gambit and not license its technology on a wide scale. Guess who won the consumers' hearts and minds?

Come to think of it, wasn't DAT a Sony innovation as well?

It is strange and sad, but as far as technology is concerned, faced with a veritable banquet of devices with the potential to genuinely improve lives, virtually all consumers simply head straight for the popcorn.

[MadMusician]

I, too, remember when DAT was going to be "the next big thing". I suspected that it would flounder in the marketplace, however, due to concerns by music companies that it would be too easy to copy pre-recorded tapes. There was no such thing as a CD-R at the time, of course, and so....CDs flourished.

When CD-R's first hit the marketplace, I remembered back when "duplicating" a digital recording was the argument of the day. Little did they know...

[Eva]

the late, lamented Betamax, a more reliable, compact, and higher-resolution videotape format than its competitor, VHS

In Hungary Betamax was the format that was used for years. Much longer than in the Netherlands. I don't know if it was the same in other eastern European countries...

Eva

[DaveM]

I believe Betamax stuck around in Canada for some time as well, but am not sure.

With regard to my earlier comment about quadraphonic stereo, I should amplify a bit. There is nothing wrong with the "surround sound" concept as is made evidence by the popularity of home theater systems--I think the sound is great. What ruined quad stereo, to my mind, was the liberties taken by those who remixed albums for four-channel play. When does a drum set take off and fly in circles around the room? I recall hearing that on at least two quadraphonic disks. That and the peculiar habit of vocalists on quad disks to leap from channel to channel without warning, turning a listening experience into an exercise in confusion. Sure, such things were "cool" when Jimi Hendrix did them in stereo, but by the time quad came along, those days (and the substances associated with them) had become passe.

Add to the a format that could not reproduce four channels well (your choice: 8-track or vinyl), overpriced turntables, amplifiers, and the need to fill half of a room with speakers (no point source speakers with subwoofers back then), and the end result was a recipe for disaster.

Mind, I wouldn't mind hearing the quad mix of "Between The Lines" at least once.

[Rkitko]

Oh boy, I remember trying to get Windows ME to work properly. Spent hours before trying to find some help forum somewhere and discovered I wasn't the only one that was having difficulties setting up printer drivers and such. What an evil OS.

Anyone else remember the TRS-80 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRS-80) (Trash-80)? My sister had one. Real piece of work it was... We used it a few times to log on to local Bulletin Board Systems, but couldn't stand the 300 Baud modem for long. Tried playing LORD (Legend of the Red Dragon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legend_of_the_Red_Dragon)) on that machine, but it didn't go very well at that speed. Oh those were the days of fledgling technology.. I wonder if I'll be saying that about today in 20 years :confused:

[DaveM]

The LightScribe CD-R/DVD-R burner. Usable only with special media (which is already being closed out by Wal-Mart), this solution in search of a problem requires half an hour to "write" a faint, smeary, monochrome "label" on a recordable disk. I've used mine a few times over around two weeks, and have already gone back to using my trusty Sharpie.

Mind, if you get lucky at Wal-Mart just now, you just might be able to score some DVD-Rs at 5/$1....