7 ms·
Let's use the clickbait title as a brainstorming prompt: what do other folks think is a better candidate for the biggest flop [in tech] of the 1990s? Also, I k
by rezmason 2y ago
Let's use the clickbait title as a brainstorming prompt: what do other folks think is a better candidate for the biggest flop [in tech] of the 1990s?
Also, I kind of wish Microsoft Bob failed a little harder— the agentic stuff I'm hearing about these days sounds like the kind of software assistants they tried in the 90s, and I fear they have the same likelihood of poor execution.
- likeabatterycar 2y ago> what do other folks think is a better candidate for the biggest flop [in tech] of the 1990s? The CueCat.
- tssva 2y agoWhat qualifies as being from the 90s? The CueCat was definitely underdevelopment in the 90s but wasn’t publicly released until 2000.
- sillywalk 2y agoIBM's Workplace OS was a couple $Billion flop. I'd also add Network Computers and "push technology" e.g. Pointcast.
- to11mtm 2y agoIt's a weirder sort of flop though. But it was a flop.
- munchler 2y agoClippy the Office Assistant. Similar idea to Bob, but more irritating. Also, The Microsoft Network. This was a competitor to AOL that came out just as the WWW was exploding. It gave us the "MSN" abbreviation that we still see today, but otherwise disappeared without a trace.
- likeabatterycar 2y agoClippy came from Bob. The tech was called Microsoft Agent.
- munchler 2y agoAh, interesting. I didn't know that.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- andrelaszlo 2y agohttps://youtu.be/5DqJwmzG6Fk?si=5oUEH0YiwZFCaYO0 https://youtu.be/5DqJwmzG6Fk?si=5oUEH0YiwZFCaYO0 Well, almost without a trace. Unfortunately?
- rwmj 2y agoI always wonder was MSN ever actually a thing or did Microsoft pull it / replace it before it reached the market? I know plenty of people who used AOL or CompuServe, but never met anyone who used the original MSN.
- munchler 2y agoI think you might be right that it was pulled before it was available to the general public. I never saw it in the wild.
- majikandy 2y agoYou mean the full internet experience in one window thing like the aol browser? I’m pretty sure I used to use it, light blue thing and hotmail a more seemless integration?
- cr125rider 2y agoMy grandpa has MSN as an ISP and would dial in using a fully featured, very blue windowed program that had everything Internet in it. I remember thinking it was pretty cool.
- majikandy 2y agoNow I feel old, lol
- mepian 2y ago> what do other folks think is a better candidate for the biggest flop [in tech] of the 1990s? VAX 9000, OS/2 2.0, OS/2 Warp 3, OpenDoc, Kaleida, Apple Newton, Pippin, 3DO, Philips CD-i, Sega 32X, Sega Saturn, Atari Jaguar, Amiga CD32…
- nytesky 2y agoWell didn’t OS/2 HPFS inspire NTFS?
- p_ing 2y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS#History They borrowed features from HPFS.
- to11mtm 2y agoOh if we're going through that sort of list.... - Virtual Boy, Atari Lynx, Hardware: - AMD Interwave. practically ruined Gravis and left us with years of Creative gobbling up any competitor i.e. Ensoniq, Aureal... FFS we had to wait for VIA to make something competitive to Creative's offerings, outside of 3-ish beautiful Cirrus Logic 4624/4630 cards, before the Envy24 became a thing. - Speaking of Cirrus Logic, The Laguna CL-GD546X series of chips; those things used RDRAM in the mid-90s and it contributed to Cirrus exiting the video market. - Speaking of Creative, the 3D Blaster VLB. They exist, (heck IDEK if the original rebel moon came any other way,) but they are rare as hell which means they probably flopped hard. - (Kinda) the Matrox M3d (and the VideoLogic counterpart). It wasn't a terrible product in and of itself but a Riva 128 was faster (if uglier) for most cases and gave you 2D as well, and they came out around the same time. [0] - Most 'cartridge disk' drives aside from the Zip[1]. You can possibly throw SuperDisk/HiFD into this category too. - Intel i820 Chipset (It's 1999!). I'm not referring to the 'lemon' aspect (i.e. when an MTH was used for SDRAM, the RDRAM was reliable... AFAIK with two slots instead of 3) but in general there was almost zero uptake due to the cost of RDRAM and Intel's recalcitrance led to both AMD gaining ground as well as VIA/SiS getting opportunities to be more competitive in the chipset space (SiS 630 was cheaper than 810E and just as good for normal users, Via's Apollo Pro 133A both supported 133Mhz FSB and gave an AGP slot, as well as IDE corruption with an SBLive... I think i815 was 4-6 months after VIA stuff was selling, and remember back then 6 months was an eternity...) Also I should note that the Saturn was mostly a flop in the US (Can't speak for EU.) but in Japan it held up well thanks to native publishers, the Saturn had a lot of great 2D games we never saw here, (thanks to the same guy that ironically caused the relative dearth of good RPGs for the PS1 before he moved from Sony to Sega...) also the ability to play CD+G (gotta have that karaoke) and I think? it could do VCDs which were bigger over there... all that stuff helped a lot and the Saturn outsold there till around 1997 IIRC. [0] - That said, wow, remember when 3d processors didn't even need a heatsink? I feel old... [1] - Zip had reliability problems, but certainly was not a flop.
- rasz 2y agoBigger assistant/agent flop of the nineties was General Magic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Magic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Magic Packed with smartest engineers and usability people from the valley. Idea was to use smart remote agents "working for the user". Burned $200mil of 1995 money developing absolutely nothing usable.
- psc 2y agoI recently read the story of the Magic Link: https://commoncog.com/c/cases/general-magic/ https://commoncog.com/c/cases/general-magic/ > When General Magic finally shipped in 1994 — under the threat of Apple’s Newton — they hadn’t made the Pocket Crystal that Porat first dreamed of in 1989. Instead, they released something they called the Sony Magic Link. It weighed 1.5 lbs (0.68 kg) and was priced at US$800 (US$1560 in 2022 dollars). It offered futuristic features like a touchscreen, downloadable apps and animated emojis — the first of its kind. Fadell thought it would be revolutionary — people could now carry a personal computer with them wherever they went. But nobody bought it. In the end only three to four thousand Magic Link devices were sold, and mostly to family and friends. There's a documentary too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTdyb-RWNKo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTdyb-RWNKo
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- rwmj 2y agoA whole bunch of telecom technologies like WAP (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_Application_Protocol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_Application_Protocol), ISDN (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISDN https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISDN) and ATM (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asynchronous_Transfer_Mode https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asynchronous_Transfer_Mode). Thankfully too since they were ugly, closed and expensive.
- thecosmicfrog 2y agoIs WAP really considered a failure? Or just a transitional technology for an era of low-powered mobile devices? I downloaded my fair share of games and ringtones from "wap dot" sites.
- johannes1234321 2y agoSimilar for ISDN. At least over here it was a successful and important solution for many people, not only for data access, but it was als the way to get multiple lines, caller id, etc. activated. Of course DSL and other techs took over, but it was far from a failure.
- wink 2y agoMaybe Germany is an outlier, but ISDN for telephony (less for internet) was still huge until.. I dunno, 2010? 2015? That's nearly 15 years of being the default solution for smaller companies. (and also bigger ones, and also private households)
- whaleofatw2022 2y agoHmm. WebTV might be up there, similar for Monorail PC. Both fairly quickly got obsoleted and any 'volume' they hoped to reach in consumer space was quickly cannibalized by similar but more profitable models (i.e. E-Machines and their steep internet contract discounts.) Nx586 was a bit of a flop as a product on its own (even funder Compaq didnt really ship many) but overall the R&D transformed AMD when they acquired NexGen and used the second iteration of the tech for the K6.
- Dwedit 2y agoI'd think "Synchronys SoftRAM" could be considered a bigger flop in terms of the actual quality of the product, but it was a successful scam.
- p_ing 2y agoMicrosoft Mira was a failure with production units shipped by 3rd parties. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_Display https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_Display
- cr125rider 2y agoThat’s insane they thought a more expensive tablet was a market as opposed to a stand alone tablet. The remote viewing is coming back though. PlayStation Portal comes to mind which is just a remote controller and screen for a PS5. It’s considerably cheaper than the full device, of course, because that would be insane if it weren’t, _Microsoft_
- p_ing 2y agoWhat's even better is that the Mira tablet simply RDP'ed into a Windows XP Pro machine. Had to be Pro, because RDP. Locks out the local console, because RDP. It was slow over 802.11b (I beta tested two of the devices).
- kmeisthax 2y ago>Locks out the local console, because RDP. Windows is perfectly capable of hosting multiple sessions, Microsoft just wants to charge you double the cost of a Windows license per session on a separate server tier of OS license. Of course, it wouldn't have saved the device if Microsoft had bent their rules for themselves...