05-26-2006, 12:53 PM
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#1
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Franchise Player
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25 worst Tech products of all time....
by PC World.
25 Worst products
LOL...wow didnt know this...
6. Disney The Lion King CD-ROM (1994)
Few products get accused of killing Christmas for thousands of kids, but that fate befell Disney's first CD-ROM for Windows. The problem: The game relied on Microsoft's new WinG graphics engine, and video card drivers had to be hand-tuned to work with it, says Alex St. John. He's currently CEO of game publisher WildTangent, but in the early 1990s he was Microsoft's first "game evangelist."
In late 1994, Compaq released a Presario whose video drivers hadn't been tested with WinG. When parents loaded the Lion King disc into their new Presarios on Christmas morning, many children got their first glimpse of the Blue Screen of Death. But this sad story has a happy ending. The WinG debacle led Microsoft to develop a more stable and powerful graphics engine called DirectX. And the team behind DirectX went on to build the Xbox--restoring holiday joy for a new generation of kids.
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05-26-2006, 12:55 PM
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#2
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#1 Goaltender
Join Date: Feb 2006
Location: Calgary, AB
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I nominate Virutal Boy from Nintendo. Man your eyes would hurt and you would get a headache after 15 minutes of playing it.
__________________
You lack rawness, you lack passion, you couldn't make it through war without rations.
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05-26-2006, 01:35 PM
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#3
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Franchise Player
Join Date: Jul 2005
Location: in your blind spot.
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I would have included DiVX in the top 10, and WebTVin the top 25, but other than that, I'd have to agree.
I'd be interested to see one of those CueCat things - I've read a few people hacked them into useful things.
__________________
"The problem with any ideology is that it gives the answer before you look at the evidence."
—Bill Clinton
"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance--it is the illusion of knowledge."
—Daniel J. Boorstin, historian, former Librarian of Congress
"But the Senator, while insisting he was not intoxicated, could not explain his nudity"
—WKRP in Cincinatti
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05-26-2006, 01:49 PM
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#4
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Lifetime Suspension
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: Lethbridge
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Bobblehead
I would have included DiVX in the top 10, and WebTVin the top 25, but other than that, I'd have to agree.
I'd be interested to see one of those CueCat things - I've read a few people hacked them into useful things.
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What is wrong with DivX?
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05-26-2006, 01:51 PM
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#5
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Franchise Player
Join Date: Apr 2004
Location: I don't belong here
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Timex Data Link Watch (1995): This early wristwatch/PDA looked like a Casio on steroids. To download data to it, you held it in front of your CRT monitor while the monitor displayed a pattern of flashing black-and-white stripes (which, incidentally, also turned you into the Manchurian Candidate). Depending on your point of view, it was either seriously cool or deeply disturbing.
I had one and it was seriously cool.
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05-26-2006, 02:16 PM
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#6
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First Line Centre
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Hong Kong
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by moon
What is wrong with DivX?
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Nothing.
But there WAS plently wrong with DivX DVD
__________________
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05-26-2006, 02:22 PM
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#7
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Scoring Winger
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by moon
What is wrong with DivX?
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He means the "pay as you watch" DVD system that Circuit City and
FutureShop tried to sell.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DIVX
After you read the article, you'll realize there was a lot wrong with it.
ers
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05-26-2006, 02:28 PM
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#8
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Playboy Mansion Poolboy
Join Date: Apr 2004
Location: Close enough to make a beer run during a TV timeout
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by moon
What is wrong with DivX?
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You are probably thinking of the codec, not the DVD format.
DivX was a pay-per view type of DVD service. I would go to the store and buy the disc for $10, and then once I activated it I could watch it for 48 hours. It was designed with people far away from a video store in mind; however most people decided it was better to buy the disc for $20 than to rent it for $10.
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05-26-2006, 02:29 PM
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#9
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Franchise Player
Join Date: Jul 2005
Location: in your blind spot.
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by moon
What is wrong with DivX?
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Nothing wrong with the codec - lots wrong with the Mission Impossible-esque self destructing DVD.
__________________
"The problem with any ideology is that it gives the answer before you look at the evidence."
—Bill Clinton
"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance--it is the illusion of knowledge."
—Daniel J. Boorstin, historian, former Librarian of Congress
"But the Senator, while insisting he was not intoxicated, could not explain his nudity"
—WKRP in Cincinatti
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05-26-2006, 02:30 PM
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#10
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Scoring Winger
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The list, while listing some items that were bad, very bad, some of them
are not.
AOL. RealPlayer. The top two. These two actually helped in their
own respective ways, AOL led toward the internet. RealPlayer in
streaming video and video playback. By today's standards not very
good, or done well, but at the time that was all there was.
PointCast led to information streaming, it was a first large-scale
attempt.
Iomega to large storage, pre-dating CD and DVD, at a time when
100MB of storage was huge.
Most of them belong, but the addition of stuff that by today's
standards is lacking, the list begins to lose it's lustre.
ers
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05-26-2006, 02:32 PM
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#11
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Lifetime Suspension
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: Lethbridge
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okay. thanks everyone I had never heard of the DVD version so was only thinking of the codec version which I have had no problems with at all.
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05-26-2006, 02:42 PM
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#12
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Franchise Player
Join Date: Jul 2005
Location: in your blind spot.
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by moon
okay. thanks everyone I had never heard of the DVD version so was only thinking of the codec version which I have had no problems with at all.
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Yeah, I always hated that they had the same name. What, there weren't enough names that they BOTH used divx?
__________________
"The problem with any ideology is that it gives the answer before you look at the evidence."
—Bill Clinton
"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance--it is the illusion of knowledge."
—Daniel J. Boorstin, historian, former Librarian of Congress
"But the Senator, while insisting he was not intoxicated, could not explain his nudity"
—WKRP in Cincinatti
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05-26-2006, 03:57 PM
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#13
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Playboy Mansion Poolboy
Join Date: Apr 2004
Location: Close enough to make a beer run during a TV timeout
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IIRC part of the reason for the same name was the Codec was made for the DVD format, and then when the format died they decided to open it up for public use.
But one time somebody who was house sitting for me called me on my cell to ask why his AVI file wouldn't play in my DVD player. When I said my DVD player doesn't play AVI's he said "but it says DivX right on the front of it."
I had forgotten it had that feature.
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05-26-2006, 07:42 PM
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#14
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In the Sin Bin
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by ken0042
You are probably thinking of the codec, not the DVD format.
DivX was a pay-per view type of DVD service. I would go to the store and buy the disc for $10, and then once I activated it I could watch it for 48 hours. It was designed with people far away from a video store in mind; however most people decided it was better to buy the disc for $20 than to rent it for $10.
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And in a case of history repeating itself, when I was in Tampa two years ago, I noticed that 7-11 was selling DVDs that would do the same thing. I think the cost was like $5, and the laser on the DVD player would cause the disc to expire as it was being watched. Basically, a throwaway rental disc.
Not surprisingly, I havent seen it since, likely for the exact same reason.
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