Name some technology or device (new for its time) that you were POSITIVE would take off that failed.

I can think of a few devices that I would have staked everything I owned on (or at least invested more than I should have in) that turned out to be disappointments (to be kind) or failures (to be blunt):

1. The Apple Newton. I was sure the Apple Newton was going to be the most amazing advancement ever. I invested in this as a new adopter, and we all know what happened to that Newton, sadly. Mine still works, and I still am resentful that it didn't do better. Call me stubborn, I still haven't given up on it. And I can't bring myself to toss all my Newton stuff--from unopened Newtons, leather cases, rechargeable batteries, memory chips that you insert into the device to give it more memory, etc... If I could have afforded to, at the time, I would have bought Apple stock, but I was just a kid.

2. The MiniDisc and MiniDisc player. I must own close to ten or twelve MiniDisc players. You could say I collected them, back when they were available. This is clearly another technology that didn't do well (and upon which I wasted way much more money than I could afford.)

I think we Newton fans will be excited this June when Apple releases an iPhone-like tablet!!

What unopened Newton stuff do you have? I'm looking for some replacement parts.

It's so nice to meet somebody else who was infatuated with the Newton.

My Newtons still work, after all these years! What year was it unveiled? 1992? 1993?

It is the "machine nobody loved that refused to die."

The Newton handwriting technology has evolved at Apple as a new project called "ink".

The coolest thing about the Newton (that I miss from the iPhone) is the "assist" feature... You could write "Meet Dr. Strangeglove next Tuesday" and the Newton would put that in the calendar for you.

Also, the Newton could learn your peculiar handwriting over time and considering word context. I have ADD and that comes with truly atrocious handwriting.... However the Newton learned my note-taking style over time... I never could make Palm devices work because they required too much precision re: the letter gestures, and they never considered word context (only letter gestures).


BTW, I have a MessagePad 100 and 2000 *upgraded to the 2100".

WAY ahead of its time.

For decades, "they" said it was just around the corner.

For my part, I liked the Laserdisc, although I was too young to actually spend money on that technology.

But compared to professional BetaCam or DV, they're both garbage.

It's like arguing over brands of boxed wine.

I never bought one but borrowed my sister's. After about 10 seconds I was like FUCK THIS! I'd just as soon shave my legs rusty barbed wire than use that thing. Oh I hear they still make those instruments of satan.

It was killer...

About the same time I no longer needed a PDA, as I was no longer working. I now have an Itouch and a decent cell phone, my husband has an Iphone through his job.

a la the Aston Martin Lagonda. It was just about brilliant. Only it didn't work. Ever.

In 1994, when I bought my first one for $200 (:puke:), I was amazed at the technology that gave you an astonishing 100 megs of transportable storage, especially considering that my hard drive was only that big.

Later they came out with IIRC a 1 gig version, which I got on eBay for like $40, including the drive/interface and three blank disk-cartidges.

I was positive that it would take off, but the brand was entirely out-maneuvered and eclipsed by ZIP-Drives.


Of course, we all know how impressive 100 megs of storage is today. Heck, a local bank recently gave away 128 meg flash drives to anyone with a pulse!

and the subsequent BeBox.

I never used either, but was awaiting their mass-introduction due to all the geeks I knew that used and loved it. And nothing further happened.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BeOS

v4, I believe. Very cool OS that should have been massive. It was a contender for the guts of OSX at one time, but Apple bought NeXT instead. Had the had the capitalization and ability to compete with MS, they would have been huge, IMHO.

I remember an engineering company I worked for back then that bought one and then I never heard of the NeXT again.

Didn't the Be OS also do some kind of "checking" of other programs running such that it shared resources better than other OS-es? I seem to recall something like 3-times a second, but I wasn't geeky enough to remember what that meant ;) Only that the result on their BeBox was the ability to run at least 18 full-motion videos at the same time before you started to notice a degradation of processing quality. If only we could do that now. Maybe AutoCrash (AutoCAD Civil 3D 2010) wouldn't crash so often...

I was positive it was the next thing. Far ahead of anything else at the time.

Unfortunately shortly after they came into being, CD burners became affordable and usable for home PCs.

Also unfortunately I had invested some of my 'for college' money into Iomega stock. :(

But now I have a little SD disk that can fit two gigs of data on it. Both it and the reader for it cost less than a single zip disk used to. :\ Time marches on. Zip drives were awesome, they just came out at the wrong time.

I still have mine and sometimes it's more convenient than burning a disk.

SYQUEST, oh SYQUEST, we hardly knew ye!

I was sure that thing was going to replace the sewing machine. Of course, I was only like 8 years old at the time.

:shrug:

Outboard Marine Corps investment in Ficht Fuel Injection. A method of direct injection for gasoline engines, eliminating the inherently inefficient throttle plate used on Carbed, FI and multiport FI systems.

Development costs put OMC under and the technology didn't deliver all that could be hoped. Only partially successful at acheiving Lean Burn over a specific range of RPM's and today owned by Bombardier and sold as the E-Tec Outboard, branded Evinrude.

It had the convenience of standard audio tapes with wider
tape running at a faster speed to offer a greater dynamic
range.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elcaset

e-commerce was suppsed to give us online car buying direct from the manufacturer, cutting out the dealer...

Reebok "pumps"