The very best in obsolete and failed technology...

BeerWolf · 07-02-2014 10:10PM

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 · 07-02-2014 10:11PM

This post has been deleted.

BeerWolf · 07-02-2014 10:11PM

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 · 07-02-2014 10:15PM

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 · 07-02-2014 10:15PM

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 · 07-02-2014 10:17PM

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 · 07-02-2014 10:22PM

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 · 07-02-2014 10:46PM

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

antodeco · 07-02-2014 10:55PM

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 · 07-02-2014 11:02PM

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 · 07-02-2014 11:08PM

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 · 07-02-2014 11:13PM

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 · 07-02-2014 11:23PM

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 · 07-02-2014 11:29PM

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 · 07-02-2014 11:34PM

SEPT 23 1989 wrote: »

Concorde

You had a concorde? Fair play.

The Th!ng · 07-02-2014 11:35PM

www.boards.ie

meep · 07-02-2014 11:40PM

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 · 07-02-2014 11:41PM

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.

08-02-2014 12:02AM

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 · 08-02-2014 12:07AM

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.

08-02-2014 12:09AM

Tombo2001 wrote: »

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.

true but mainly because they look cooler and are a status symbol (rolex, omega etc.) - nothing to do with the actual tech being obsolete really...

Wibbs · 08-02-2014 12:16AM

Tombo2001 wrote: »

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.

My dad funny enough T said the opposite, which surprised me TBH as he was born before our civil war*. He reckoned it was an advancement alright, but also another fad that would have a peak and then settle down and that I should look to the old stuff now that it was dirt cheap cos nobody wanted it and that this was often the case with some new tech. He got me interested and I did start collecting the old stuff. In a small way. Not too cleverly though TBH. I turned down old watches in the 80's for buttons, that would be worth many thousands today. Like various steel rolexes for 50 quid kinda thing. Doh! Still I did get a couple that stood to me...

*I'm not that old, he married late

hidinginthebush · 08-02-2014 12:17AM

DublinWriter wrote: »

Minidiscs were technically inferior to CDs.

"Technically", maybe, but you could fit 4 albums onto the one disc, they didn't skip, and the batteries lasted ages. Far superior IMO (though I didn't know a whole lot about bitrates etc back then, so could be wrong). But from a usability point of view, definitely better that portable cd players.

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.

BeerWolf wrote: »

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

Ha I still have mine too, as well as an older 60GB zen from 2005, I think? The ipods / itouches definitely put the creatives to shame alright. I could still never get used to using itunes though.

moxin · 08-02-2014 12:22AM

meep wrote: »

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)

CD writers killed Iomega Zip drives just like Zip drives killed the floppy. Of course DVD writers came along and killed CD's, its an evolution!

connundrum · 08-02-2014 12:28AM

Sony Discman - paid the extra £45 for the 'skip proof' model.

Totally skip proof, unless you moved it in any direction and at any speed.

sum41dude · 08-02-2014 12:29AM

Ladies and gentlemen I present you: The PSX. What a completely bizarre and absurd concept.

http://static.giantbomb.com/uploads/original/6/65055/2180982-psx2.jpg

Czarcasm · 08-02-2014 12:32AM

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."

The Nokia 7110, cracker of a phone, and then I went and bought one of the first 3G models available, no, not the Nokia N70, but the Motorola V3x, one of the first phones I started custom modding and a phone that was simply so way ahead of it's time that it was short lived, because "It's too big" was the general consensus...

That was in 2005, and it'd actually be considered discreet by todays standard smartphones! :pac:

Sir Osis of Liver. · 08-02-2014 12:38AM

I also had a WAP phone.

Yeah,them Italian lads made great mobiles alright.

o1s1n · 08-02-2014 12:38AM

One of my favourite things which has faced obsolescence in our modern age is proper, high end hifi rack systems. I feckin love them so I do. Folks just aren't really interested in them anymore.

There's nothing quite like switching on a Pioneer silver faced separates system, all the lamps light up with a really warm glow. You here the giant, wooden boomy speakers power up for a brief moment before belting out Immigrant song - Robert Plant's voice screeching through the tweeter while the big, 12 inch woofer booms along to John Bohnam's foot pedal. The sound is just gorgeous.

None of this PC speaker/shuffle nonsense. Sure, it's great having so much combined into one device, but there still is something lovely about having devices which are dedicated to one function.

I must pick up a CD player again soon. My musical source is a laptop, but that just leads to the inevitable browsing the internet while listening to music. Sometimes it's lovely to just pop in a CD and let the stereo do the rest

Ihackedboardz · 08-02-2014 12:39AM

Hmm lets see, I have had several gadgets over the years that were a bit of a flop...

My Jazz drive
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/80/1gbjaz.jpg

My 3DO
http://static.giantbomb.com/uploads/original/0/5043/201011-3do_console.jpg

The Amiga cd 32
http://gamesdbase.com/Media/SYSTEM/Commodore_Amiga_CD32/logo/big/Commodore_Amiga_CD32_01.jpg

My trusty Minidisc
http://ii.alatest.com/product/full/1/f/Sony-MZ-R500-L-Portable-Mini-Disc-Player-0.jpg

& who could forget the god awful Blackberry storm which would decide to ring random people by itself at 3am
http://www.mobileindustryreview.com/wp-content/storm_voda_enguk_3g_bottom_angle.jpg

The very best in obsolete and failed technology...

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