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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With

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Speaker 1: tech stuff from how stuff works dot com. Welcome again,

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Speaker 1: loyal listeners to tech stuff. My name is Chris Poulette,

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Speaker 1: and I'm an editor here at how stuff works dot Com.

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Speaker 1: Sitting next to me, laughing is head off at me,

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Speaker 1: as usual, his senior writer, Jonathan Strickland. Hey there, So, uh,

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Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about some flops. Yeah, and not earlier podcasts,

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Speaker 1: oddly enough, not peda flops, not ter flops. No, we're

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Speaker 1: gonna we We decided we wanted to look at some

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Speaker 1: some famous in some cases infamous technological flops, stuff that

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Speaker 1: just did not go as planned, didn't perform as well

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Speaker 1: as it was supposed to, maybe you know, made a

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Speaker 1: big splash and then immediately sank. Um. So we're we're

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Speaker 1: focusing on the hardware side. I'm are in the future podcast.

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Speaker 1: We will focus on software that totally flopped as well. Sure,

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Speaker 1: went on, So do you want to start each shall I? Well,

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Speaker 1: I don't know you said you had yours divided up

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Speaker 1: into category. Okay, I have handheld devices, game systems, computers. Well,

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Speaker 1: I'm kidding. I'm kidding about the potpourri's words. So U so,

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Speaker 1: do you have a particular category you want to start

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Speaker 1: with or should I just launch whatever you like? Because

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Speaker 1: like I said, I mean, I've got I've only got

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Speaker 1: a couple of handheld devices, but I have several game

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Speaker 1: systems and computers that I can talk about. Well, my

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Speaker 1: my all time favorite and the one that made me

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Speaker 1: think of this is a game system related um. And

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Speaker 1: some people consider it a success. I consider it a

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Speaker 1: sort of a flop. And that would be the you

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Speaker 1: knewer people were you know, if you're born after or

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Speaker 1: just gonna get would um the at man um. I

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Speaker 1: I had an attor growing up. My wife had, so

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Speaker 1: she added that to my tech museum from the marriage.

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Speaker 1: I consider it the the prize of my collection. Um

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Speaker 1: kind of her dowry, Yes exactly, you know, forget the

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Speaker 1: hope chest. And the problem is and and this is uh,

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Speaker 1: from what I've I've read in the past, Umtory really

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Speaker 1: pushed its engineers to come up with new stuff that

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Speaker 1: it could patent, and uh, they came up with this joystick,

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Speaker 1: which is an analog joystick exactly like well not exactly

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Speaker 1: like but very similar to the ones you might see

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Speaker 1: on modern controllers like I'm the Xbox three sixty or

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Speaker 1: the PlayStation controllers that the little thumbsticks. But this is bigger,

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Speaker 1: and it's a it's a lot bigger actually, UM and

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Speaker 1: uh comes attached to a a numeric keypad. And the

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Speaker 1: problem with this is a lot of the games at

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Speaker 1: that point were very you know, up down, left right

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Speaker 1: sort of games, and so this sixty degree controller made

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Speaker 1: it a real pan and neck to play stuff like

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Speaker 1: pac Man and anything you needed a firm straight up

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Speaker 1: and down left right direction fire. I heard that it

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Speaker 1: had a real hard time resentering. I also heard that

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Speaker 1: they were fairly flimsy and could break at you know,

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Speaker 1: a moment's notice. Some if you were a an energetic gamer,

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Speaker 1: let's say, you could probably go through one and just

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Speaker 1: a couple of gaming sessions. I actually sent back the

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Speaker 1: one that had my my the one that came with

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Speaker 1: my wife's system, had broken, and I sent it to

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Speaker 1: this place in California called Best Electronics, which actually has

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Speaker 1: a lot of the old Attari parts, and if you

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Speaker 1: send in your controller, they will give you a discount

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Speaker 1: on a remanufactured one. It has since broken too. I'm

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Speaker 1: not surprised it was. It was not very hardy. There

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Speaker 1: were some other problems with the attar besides the fact

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Speaker 1: that it had allows the controller. So I'm glad you

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Speaker 1: mentioned the controller because that was definitely on my list,

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Speaker 1: but itself was on my list. The main reason was

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Speaker 1: because it was not backwards compatible, not in the least.

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Speaker 1: You couldn't play at games on the R which was

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Speaker 1: a very common gripe at the time and had a

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Speaker 1: bunch of games. Yeah, and the worst part was was

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Speaker 1: that they started to re release the games in formats,

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Speaker 1: so you would have to buy the same game to

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Speaker 1: play it on your new system. So you have to

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Speaker 1: have two copies of the same game just to be

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Speaker 1: able to play it. So if you are a current

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Speaker 1: console owner and wonder about backward compatibility and why they

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Speaker 1: bother doing that, that's why, because people will gripe now, yeah,

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Speaker 1: as anyone who's owned any of the Nintendo machines leading

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Speaker 1: up to the WEI could argue, because of course that's

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Speaker 1: the same problem is that they would they off Nintendo

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Speaker 1: would often ignore backwards compatibility, and um, and I mean

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Speaker 1: that was one of the things about PS two that

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Speaker 1: people loved was the fact that you could still play

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Speaker 1: the PlayStation one games on the PS two, most of

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Speaker 1: them anyway. And same thing with the Xbox three sixty.

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Speaker 1: You could play most of the Xbox games on it,

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Speaker 1: so you know, you didn't feel like you had to

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Speaker 1: keep an old machine around just to be able to

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Speaker 1: play some of your favorite games. You could. You could

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Speaker 1: actually get rid of it, play the stuff on the

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Speaker 1: new machine so much now and and so on it went.

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Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, a Torii had a giant

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Speaker 1: lead in the home with sort of began squandering it

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Speaker 1: because on my list or also the Attry Links and Jaguar,

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Speaker 1: and they got increasingly hard to use and people stopped

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Speaker 1: developing for them. Yeah, you've got smaller and smaller libraries

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Speaker 1: of games. The games that did come out were pretty lame,

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Speaker 1: and so ATRII, you know, eventually was no longer a

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Speaker 1: player in the video game console war. I probably probably

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Speaker 1: shouldn't have mentioned the Links in a way because the

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Speaker 1: Links actually, from what I understand, was a pretty good

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Speaker 1: gaming system, but at that point they had already squandered

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Speaker 1: their developers, right. Yeah, that was the problem was that,

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Speaker 1: you know, it was a good device without good content.

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Speaker 1: That's the problem. And because they were going up against

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Speaker 1: the first Game Boy at that point, and endo because

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Speaker 1: some of these flops are are flops, not because the

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Speaker 1: hardware that itself was was faulty, but just because of

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Speaker 1: bad timing or other consequences. Um, all right, well, let

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Speaker 1: me let me throw another game system at an infamous

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Speaker 1: game system flop. Nintendo Virtual Boy. Oh boy, did you

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Speaker 1: ever actually try one of these? No, I'd seen them

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Speaker 1: and they looked kind of it looked kind of flimsy,

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Speaker 1: and I didn't want to mess with it, okay, because

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Speaker 1: they didn't want to try it out in the store

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Speaker 1: and have a break. Right, Yeah, you don't want to

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Speaker 1: end up buying a multihull system that has only fourteen

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Speaker 1: games in the United States. So the Nintendo Virtual Boy,

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Speaker 1: if you don't remember this or have you never seen one,

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Speaker 1: you wonder what we're talking about. It looked like a visor.

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Speaker 1: Um it was. It was this system. It was a

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Speaker 1: virtual health advisor. Yeah. The the system was was like

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Speaker 1: a you know, think of like an electronic binoculars really,

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Speaker 1: um on a little tripod and you would put your

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Speaker 1: face up to it and you'd look through the lenses

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Speaker 1: and it was all in red and black. Those were

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Speaker 1: the only two colors that could display, and it would

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Speaker 1: because you're looking at it through binocular vision, you would

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Speaker 1: given the feeling of depth. So it created a three

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Speaker 1: D effect, although I have to say, from my own

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Speaker 1: personal experience, it was not an overwhelmingly convincing three D effect.

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Speaker 1: And not only that, but Nintendo started to build in

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Speaker 1: elements in the games that would require you to take

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Speaker 1: breaks after you played it for a while, because users

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Speaker 1: were reporting problems with headaches, and I strain after using

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Speaker 1: it for more than, you know, fifteen minutes at a time.

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Speaker 1: And I don't know about you, but when I'm gaming,

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Speaker 1: it's usually longer than fifteen minutes. Um. In fact, as

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Speaker 1: a as a kid, I was one of those kids

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Speaker 1: who would brack up the you know, three or four

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Speaker 1: hours of serious gaming all in a row, um, depending

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Speaker 1: on what the system was and what the games were.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, that would have been pretty irritating. Now. I

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Speaker 1: only tried it out in stores, and I think, um,

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Speaker 1: there's one kid in my neighborhood who had one, and

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Speaker 1: before we ostracized him for his choice and video gaming. Um.

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Speaker 1: I played it a couple of times at this house,

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Speaker 1: but then of course we ended up, you know, ostracizing him. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we we we kind of banished him from the neighborhood. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we do not speak of him. I I have what

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Speaker 1: I call Jonathan rolls his eyes at me moment. But

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Speaker 1: he may he may actually, uh, he may actually enjoy

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Speaker 1: the fact that I'm doing this. A long time ago,

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Speaker 1: the Commodore company had something that they purchased from somebody

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Speaker 1: else called the Amiga. I made a series of fairly

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Speaker 1: successful computers, but what they also made was a console

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Speaker 1: called the Amiga c D thirty two. It was the

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Speaker 1: first thirty two bit console game system available in Canada

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Speaker 1: and Europe, and actually, uh Amiga was actually known for

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Speaker 1: its games. In fact, when I had my Amigas and

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Speaker 1: they were my only computers, people used to laugh at

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Speaker 1: me because they said, oh, well, I've got a PC

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Speaker 1: or I've got a Mac and you've got a game machine. Well,

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Speaker 1: I think that's really funny now when people buy five

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Speaker 1: thousand dollar PCs to play games on. But um, the

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Speaker 1: c D thirty two was going to capitalize on that

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Speaker 1: because it was a console that you could hook up.

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Speaker 1: It actually had ports for keyboard and mouse. Unfortunately, Commodore

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Speaker 1: didn't manage things very well, and they never even got

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Speaker 1: to introduce it in the United States before it folded,

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Speaker 1: so it just sort of, uh, you know, it went away.

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Speaker 1: It was the game that that almost was. There were

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Speaker 1: some titles that I played that were available for the

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Speaker 1: c D thirty two that I played on the Amiga

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Speaker 1: that we're pretty cool. But you know, again, it didn't

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Speaker 1: matter that the uh just Hardna, it wasn't okay, it

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Speaker 1: was just sort of I mean, first thirty two bit system.

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Speaker 1: All right, I got another one for you, okay, Nakia Engage. Ah, yes,

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Speaker 1: this is sort of a handheld gadget slash games system. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So uh, and there's another one that I can add

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Speaker 1: in there too afterwards. No, no, no, the Engage two

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Speaker 1: was an improvement over the Engage and still was a flop.

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Speaker 1: But so then the original Knockia Engage. First of all, uh,

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Speaker 1: it looked pretty weird. Um. If you wanted to use

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Speaker 1: it as a phone, because it didn't have phone capabilities,

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Speaker 1: you had to hold it um in a really weird

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Speaker 1: sideways uh fashion, and you didn't hold it flat side

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Speaker 1: to your ear, you held it edge to your ears.

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Speaker 1: So people said it looked like you were holding a

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Speaker 1: taco to your face. Um, had Mexican food for lunch.

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Speaker 1: So uh, but yeah, it's an awkward design and uh

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Speaker 1: and the other the awkward in more ways than one.

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Speaker 1: If you wanted to switch the games out of the

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Speaker 1: original Knockia, you had to remove the battery to do it.

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Speaker 1: You had to take the battery out, take out the cartridge,

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Speaker 1: put a new cartridge, and put the battery in and

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Speaker 1: start playing. So yeah, bad design. And um, it didn't

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Speaker 1: get a whole lot of support. Not a whole lot

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Speaker 1: of games came out for it. So although it hung

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Speaker 1: around for a couple of years, um, it just it

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Speaker 1: never really got a big market share. There's still some

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Speaker 1: elements of the Knockia Engage out there now. Knakia still

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Speaker 1: has the gaming platform um for the for its phones.

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Speaker 1: You can use the Knockia Engage platform on your phone. Um,

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Speaker 1: you're not actually using the the engage device itself. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: that was another flop. The other one I was gonna mention,

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Speaker 1: of course, was the Gizmondo. Yes, which never was. This

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Speaker 1: was this was a handheld device, had had lots of

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Speaker 1: cool features in it, you know, a camera, GPS receiver. Um,

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Speaker 1: but it was like four dollars for a little handheld device,

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Speaker 1: and from what I understand, it would drain the batteries

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Speaker 1: so quickly that there was really no way you can

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Speaker 1: have a satisfying gaming experience on it in the first place.

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Speaker 1: So another technology flop, and that, you know, the company

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Speaker 1: turned out to be sort of Yeah, the there are

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Speaker 1: a lot of interesting, interesting, controversial things about that company

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Speaker 1: and its founder. Um should read up on that. It's interesting. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we really can't go into it because that's not really

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Speaker 1: about the flops. I mean, that's more. We should do

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Speaker 1: technology controversies at some point. That would be a fun one. Um.

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Speaker 1: I'm done with game systems, by the way, I am too. Actually, well,

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Speaker 1: there was the c d I. Yeah, we could talk

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Speaker 1: about other ones like the c d I, the three

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Speaker 1: D O. Yeah, I mean there are plenty of other

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Speaker 1: ones that that flopped. Well, the cd I was sort

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Speaker 1: of cross platform, you know, because it had one DVD

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Speaker 1: player and other stuff in it. Just that it was

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Speaker 1: kind of expensive and nobody wanted to buy it. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's one of those that just never really found a

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Speaker 1: place either. Um. Okay, well, how about I go with

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Speaker 1: handheld devices? So we can go ahead and put up

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Speaker 1: the flameproof shielding around the podcast. Hold on one second

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Speaker 1: while I flip a switch. All right, there we go,

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Speaker 1: there we go. Here we go. The Apple Newton. Don't

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Speaker 1: hit me, not in the face. Um the Apple Newton. Okay,

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Speaker 1: I know it has its uh devotees, but uh Apple

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Speaker 1: Newton was spanned. What a what a mess that was,

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Speaker 1: especially the original Apple Newton that came out. It just

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Speaker 1: even some of the designers who worked on the Apple

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Speaker 1: Newton say that it was rushed to market and that

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Speaker 1: it was not ready when it hit the store shelves.

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Speaker 1: That never happens with technology, right. I read a report

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Speaker 1: from one I wish I had written down the fellow's name,

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Speaker 1: but I read a report from one of the founders

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Speaker 1: are one of the people who designed the Newton. Um.

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Speaker 1: He actually left the project before it it finally went

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Speaker 1: to the stores. But he specifically said that that Apple

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Speaker 1: should not the Apple marketing crew should not say that

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Speaker 1: the Apple Newton could recognize your handwriting, because he felt

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Speaker 1: that that capability was not fully implemented and that it

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Speaker 1: presented an incorrect picture. And not only did they use it,

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Speaker 1: but they've used it in the largest font and put

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Speaker 1: it on the front page of the marketing materials. So

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Speaker 1: the Apple Newton, in case you don't know what it is,

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Speaker 1: it was sort of a PDA and it was as

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Speaker 1: a pd A it that you could use to to

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Speaker 1: take notes. You you had a little stylist that you

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Speaker 1: could write on your your the screen, and it was

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Speaker 1: supposed to have handwriting recognition as well as all these

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Speaker 1: other capabilities. That was just one thing that it could do,

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Speaker 1: but that was what was really known for doing poorly. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's true. The the handwriting recognition sort of gets a

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Speaker 1: bad rap for an otherwise pretty decent little machine. And

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Speaker 1: for those of you who don't know what a p

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Speaker 1: d A is, For some of our younger listeners, it's

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Speaker 1: a smartphone without the phone or the camera. Yeah, it's

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Speaker 1: the GPS system. It's it's the way that you can

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Speaker 1: keep your your calendar and contexts and things like that

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Speaker 1: all at hand without actually being able to make any

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Speaker 1: phone calls. And the Newton technology actually moved into something

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Speaker 1: else called the eMate, which was supposed to be for

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Speaker 1: educational purposes but sort of a clamshell device and had

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Speaker 1: a little keyboard in it. A lot of people thought

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Speaker 1: it was kind of neat, but Apple killed it. That

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Speaker 1: was right at the point where Steve Jobs came back

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Speaker 1: to the company and he pretty much said, yeah, no

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Speaker 1: more Newton or EMI, right, mat Um, And the Newton

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Speaker 1: was UM. Well, first of all, it was small, but

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Speaker 1: not small enough. It was still a pretty bulky device.

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Speaker 1: When you're talking about handheld devices, and the most expensive

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Speaker 1: model costs a thousand dollars. That's a lot of money

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Speaker 1: for a p d AH it is, especially one that

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Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily recognize your handwriting. Yeah, I've got one other

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Speaker 1: handheld device I can talk about very briefly before we

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Speaker 1: move on to one of yours, if you like, or

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Speaker 1: if you have one you want to throw in. I've

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Speaker 1: got a I've got a handheld device, and I had

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Speaker 1: another gadget that's not really um handheld device. I have

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Speaker 1: the que Cat that cue cat. I don't. I don't.

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Speaker 1: That's not ringing any bells. Oh, Jonathan, I think that's

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Speaker 1: good for you, because the que Cat was advice UM

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Speaker 1: that actually Wired was going to try out this partnership,

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Speaker 1: but it seriously, you need to be sitting down for this.

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Speaker 1: It was a cat shaped barcode reader USB barcode reader.

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Speaker 1: Why because there was. It was a marketing device. You

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Speaker 1: would get a que cat and then they would send

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Speaker 1: a magazine to you, like Wired, and you would scan

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Speaker 1: the barcode. So if you were interested in something on

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Speaker 1: page seventeen and then had a barcode for the que cat,

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Speaker 1: you could read it. However, it also became known that

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Speaker 1: they each device had a number that was identifiable, so

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Speaker 1: it basically had cookies built into it, if you will,

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Speaker 1: and so they could figure out what you were interested in,

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Speaker 1: what you weren't interested in, and now wouldn't have personally

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Speaker 1: identifiable information, but they would know that, you know, whatever

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Speaker 1: your user number was, you know it was interested in

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Speaker 1: these kinds of technologies. Are number three really likes ladies underwear? Exactly? Um? However,

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Speaker 1: hackers started using them for different things. They found ways

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Speaker 1: to use them for other stuff like, uh, scan barcodes

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Speaker 1: to add things to your database. You could create your

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Speaker 1: own home library. And that made the que cat people

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Speaker 1: really upset, and they threatened to sue those hackers if

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Speaker 1: they could ever find them. Um. Nonetheless, the que cat

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Speaker 1: sort of evaporated and never came back. Um. And yes,

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Speaker 1: it is cat shaped. It looks like a reclining cat. Well,

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Speaker 1: let me hit you with this hang held device really quickly. Um,

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Speaker 1: hopefully not literally. No, no, no, I don't own one,

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Speaker 1: so I couldn't. Um, but there are lots and lots

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Speaker 1: of cell phones that have come out that have we

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Speaker 1: could call a flop, okay, lots of phones that just

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Speaker 1: didn't work out, and um, I mean there are hundreds

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Speaker 1: of them. So I'm just choose. I just chose one

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Speaker 1: out of all the different designs, and I chose it

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Speaker 1: for one specific reason. I wonder if I'm right, but

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Speaker 1: let me see, I doubt it. The Semens Celebrity X one.

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Speaker 1: Is that what you were thinking? Yeah, because it was

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Speaker 1: an oval shaped cell phone that looked like a Star

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Speaker 1: Trek communicator device and this thing just, um, you know,

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Speaker 1: it just didn't do well. It was a little oval device,

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Speaker 1: and I mean I had a big monochromatic screen and

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Speaker 1: um and a weird keyboard that was our keypad. I

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Speaker 1: guess I should say a weird keypad that was shaped

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Speaker 1: oddly because it was at the other end of the oval.

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Speaker 1: And um, yeah, I mean it was one of those

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Speaker 1: things where I'm sure they thought it was a good

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Speaker 1: idea at the time, but I don't I don't know

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Speaker 1: anyone who bought one at all. Right, what which phone

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Speaker 1: did you think I was gonna say, I thought you

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Speaker 1: were going to talk about motor Motorola's Rocker. That's also

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00:18:28,480 --> 00:18:32,080
Speaker 1: another good one. Yeah, that's because they basically was you know,

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Speaker 1: they're big MP three player slash phone combination, the one

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Speaker 1: that if you were to play an MP three it

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Speaker 1: stopped almost everything else on the phone. And there was

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Speaker 1: very little storage on board. So so not only does

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Speaker 1: it well, it doesn't hold very much. It's very sad

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Speaker 1: because it was nice looking. Yeah, oh no, it was

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Speaker 1: pretty I have a piece of technology that's not handheld,

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Speaker 1: nor is it a computer, So I guess maybe it's

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Speaker 1: our segue device. And that's Audrey. Okay. Um actually worked

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Speaker 1: for a company that that was very interested in the

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Speaker 1: Audrey at the time, and it was a an internet appliance.

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Speaker 1: I'm not talking about the fridges that have internet access,

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Speaker 1: although those are kind of flops too, or the coffee

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Speaker 1: mate yea with internet access, right, but um no, this

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Speaker 1: was a It was a very sleek device that that

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Speaker 1: three Calm made and very cool look and had a

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Speaker 1: little screen and it was basically so that you would

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Speaker 1: have an Internet appliance in the kitchen so that you could,

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Speaker 1: you know, maybe while dinners cooking, you can check your

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Speaker 1: email or you know, look up a recipe online, or

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00:19:34,520 --> 00:19:37,000
Speaker 1: you know, do something for the It's sort of a

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Speaker 1: p D A light because it had a stylist that

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Speaker 1: you could use to use the screen. Pretty neat looking.

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Speaker 1: Hackers love it. They could, they could get into it

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Speaker 1: and mess with it. The thing is, it didn't sell

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Speaker 1: very well, and three Calm had to change direction, so

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00:19:50,920 --> 00:19:52,600
Speaker 1: you know, it was really on sale only for about

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Speaker 1: a year, year and a half thousand time frames, so

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Speaker 1: kind of neat, but you know, and maybe now would

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Speaker 1: actually succeed a little better than it would have back then,

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Speaker 1: because now that we have more of an emphasis on

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Speaker 1: cloud computing where you don't even need a very strong,

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Speaker 1: you know, computing device or to access some really really

375
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Speaker 1: cool features, maybe today it would do better than it

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00:20:14,920 --> 00:20:16,480
Speaker 1: did back then. But you see that with a lot

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Speaker 1: of the there were a lot of devices that were

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Speaker 1: meant to access the Internet and that's all they really

379
00:20:21,240 --> 00:20:24,400
Speaker 1: were supposed to do, and there were these thin client devices.

380
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Speaker 1: But the problem was back then there weren't the web

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Speaker 1: services that you needed to make that a useful device.

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Speaker 1: You didn't have the Google Docs where you could create

383
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Speaker 1: a document and save it to a cloud storage system. Um,

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Speaker 1: you would needed a hard drive and most of these

385
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Speaker 1: devices didn't have any kind of real storage space on them.

386
00:20:44,800 --> 00:20:48,280
Speaker 1: So you know, back then not so much today. Who's

387
00:20:48,320 --> 00:20:53,120
Speaker 1: to say it might actually work? So? Uh, you have computers? Yeah,

388
00:20:53,160 --> 00:20:55,320
Speaker 1: I got a whole bunch of them. I can talk

389
00:20:55,320 --> 00:20:58,440
Speaker 1: about them real quick. Okay, So here's the first one.

390
00:20:58,840 --> 00:21:01,680
Speaker 1: A couple three. So the Apple three is supposed to

391
00:21:01,680 --> 00:21:04,120
Speaker 1: be to follow up to the Apple to the most

392
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Speaker 1: expensive model. Are the most expensive version of the Apple

393
00:21:06,880 --> 00:21:10,840
Speaker 1: three was a seventy dollars when it came out. That's

394
00:21:10,880 --> 00:21:13,920
Speaker 1: um pretty expensive in the mid eighties. Uh so actually

395
00:21:14,000 --> 00:21:17,120
Speaker 1: early eighties. And um so it had a proprietary floppy

396
00:21:17,119 --> 00:21:21,720
Speaker 1: disk format, which made it incompatible with earlier UM Apple computers.

397
00:21:22,240 --> 00:21:25,720
Speaker 1: So once again we're compatibility compatibility issues. Um, there are

398
00:21:25,720 --> 00:21:30,480
Speaker 1: a lot of hardware problems. I read one place where supposedly,

399
00:21:30,960 --> 00:21:32,840
Speaker 1: and I was not able to verify this, so this

400
00:21:32,920 --> 00:21:37,480
Speaker 1: is under the rumor. And but uh supposedly one technician

401
00:21:37,840 --> 00:21:41,439
Speaker 1: suggested that if you're your hardware wasn't working properly, what

402
00:21:41,520 --> 00:21:44,639
Speaker 1: you needed to do was lift the computer a couple

403
00:21:44,680 --> 00:21:49,080
Speaker 1: of inches and drop it, Yeah, so that it would

404
00:21:49,119 --> 00:21:54,399
Speaker 1: reset the chips. That's not good tech support if you

405
00:21:54,480 --> 00:21:56,640
Speaker 1: have to drop your device so that it were I mean,

406
00:21:56,640 --> 00:22:00,200
Speaker 1: that's essentially kick it. That's the FONDSS version of tech

407
00:22:00,280 --> 00:22:05,239
Speaker 1: support percussive maintenance, right. So, Um, anyway, Apple had to

408
00:22:05,280 --> 00:22:09,320
Speaker 1: recall thousands of these machines shortly after putting them up

409
00:22:09,359 --> 00:22:11,320
Speaker 1: for sale, and uh, you know, I think it was

410
00:22:11,359 --> 00:22:13,800
Speaker 1: like fourteen thou units they had to recall. It was

411
00:22:13,840 --> 00:22:17,040
Speaker 1: it was a horrible, horrible image problem for Apple. Um.

412
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Speaker 1: And it just was a complete flop. Yeah, And uh,

413
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Speaker 1: I bet I know another one on your list, the

414
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Speaker 1: immediate predecessor to the Mac, which was actually developed at

415
00:22:28,119 --> 00:22:31,240
Speaker 1: the same time as the Mac, but a total flop

416
00:22:31,720 --> 00:22:35,879
Speaker 1: Lisa Lisa, most of which are in landfills. Now I

417
00:22:35,920 --> 00:22:38,560
Speaker 1: did not choose the Lisa, but I figured that once

418
00:22:38,560 --> 00:22:40,320
Speaker 1: you started talking about that, that that had to be what

419
00:22:40,359 --> 00:22:43,600
Speaker 1: you were And it was a very similar situation. The

420
00:22:43,600 --> 00:22:47,840
Speaker 1: Apple way way expensive uh similar technology to the Mac

421
00:22:47,920 --> 00:22:50,080
Speaker 1: because it was developed by an entirely different group at

422
00:22:50,080 --> 00:22:54,040
Speaker 1: Apple at the same time, and uh, you know, it

423
00:22:54,119 --> 00:22:58,320
Speaker 1: was so extremely expensive that they kind of just let

424
00:22:58,359 --> 00:23:04,320
Speaker 1: it go all right. So, um, do you remember E machines? Yeah,

425
00:23:04,480 --> 00:23:07,639
Speaker 1: I had any machine? Did you ever have any machine? Okay,

426
00:23:07,680 --> 00:23:12,159
Speaker 1: so E machines these are IBM. These were IBM compatible computers,

427
00:23:12,680 --> 00:23:16,159
Speaker 1: UM that uh and still are still are. Yeah. But

428
00:23:16,280 --> 00:23:19,400
Speaker 1: the early early E machines that came out, uh, there

429
00:23:19,400 --> 00:23:21,439
Speaker 1: were problems with them. One of the problems was that

430
00:23:21,840 --> 00:23:24,080
Speaker 1: they were super cheap. I mean, that was the really

431
00:23:24,119 --> 00:23:26,240
Speaker 1: the benefit thing about the machine. Yeah. And you could

432
00:23:26,240 --> 00:23:29,240
Speaker 1: even sign up for a service contract where you get

433
00:23:29,240 --> 00:23:32,320
Speaker 1: a free computer in return for this service that you

434
00:23:32,359 --> 00:23:35,280
Speaker 1: had purchased. I imagine, if I remember correctly, you had

435
00:23:35,280 --> 00:23:37,520
Speaker 1: to sign up for internet service for several years. It's

436
00:23:37,560 --> 00:23:39,960
Speaker 1: like it's like two years, um, and ended up being

437
00:23:40,080 --> 00:23:42,200
Speaker 1: but it still ended up being a fairly cheap computer

438
00:23:42,600 --> 00:23:45,320
Speaker 1: by today's standards. Anyways, we're talking about like seven bucks.

439
00:23:45,359 --> 00:23:48,679
Speaker 1: But you're since you would have had to have purchase

440
00:23:48,800 --> 00:23:52,679
Speaker 1: service somehow otherwise, I mean, you know, it looked like

441
00:23:52,680 --> 00:23:54,800
Speaker 1: a deal. The problem was that a lot of the

442
00:23:55,000 --> 00:23:59,160
Speaker 1: machines UM had faulty hardware. The early ones, early ones

443
00:23:59,240 --> 00:24:02,520
Speaker 1: had things like bad power supplies. There the noisy fans.

444
00:24:03,240 --> 00:24:06,119
Speaker 1: Sometimes the modems wouldn't work. Sometimes it was impossible to

445
00:24:06,160 --> 00:24:08,960
Speaker 1: get hold of tech support. Um, so they were cheap

446
00:24:09,040 --> 00:24:12,000
Speaker 1: but not reliable, the early ones. Anyway, at this point,

447
00:24:12,040 --> 00:24:13,840
Speaker 1: I haven't used any machine in years, so I have

448
00:24:13,920 --> 00:24:16,800
Speaker 1: no idea what the quality is now, but back then

449
00:24:17,280 --> 00:24:22,200
Speaker 1: not so good. On a similar note, the Dell Dimension

450
00:24:23,080 --> 00:24:26,800
Speaker 1: hundred so that came out in two thousand three, also

451
00:24:26,880 --> 00:24:31,680
Speaker 1: had problems with power supply failures. So the real problem

452
00:24:31,760 --> 00:24:34,080
Speaker 1: with this was not that only that you would have

453
00:24:34,080 --> 00:24:37,520
Speaker 1: a power supply failure, but that Dell had misidentified the

454
00:24:37,520 --> 00:24:40,640
Speaker 1: problem and thought it was a motherboard problem. So their

455
00:24:40,680 --> 00:24:43,880
Speaker 1: solutions did not fix the problem for a very long time,

456
00:24:43,920 --> 00:24:48,360
Speaker 1: and for a while the company was adamant in denying

457
00:24:48,440 --> 00:24:51,560
Speaker 1: that there were any power supply issues. So that was

458
00:24:51,640 --> 00:24:54,280
Speaker 1: kind of where Dell fell from grace for a while.

459
00:24:55,119 --> 00:24:57,800
Speaker 1: So they've had to you know, that's where the dude,

460
00:24:58,040 --> 00:25:01,840
Speaker 1: dude don't get a Dell. That's where the little phrase

461
00:25:01,920 --> 00:25:03,800
Speaker 1: came from out of that after their dude get a

462
00:25:03,880 --> 00:25:10,360
Speaker 1: Dull commercials. So yeah, um, okay, how about the Packard

463
00:25:10,359 --> 00:25:16,040
Speaker 1: Bell PCs, all of them, lots of them. One out

464
00:25:16,080 --> 00:25:21,720
Speaker 1: of six Packard Bell PCs returned to the store by users. Now,

465
00:25:22,040 --> 00:25:25,000
Speaker 1: you know, Packard Bell still exists, and I know that

466
00:25:25,040 --> 00:25:27,840
Speaker 1: they had bad problems in the nineties. Yes, I haven't

467
00:25:27,840 --> 00:25:30,040
Speaker 1: heard how they're doing now. The nineties are really the

468
00:25:30,160 --> 00:25:32,679
Speaker 1: era I'm looking at, because one of the issues was

469
00:25:32,720 --> 00:25:35,879
Speaker 1: that they were accused many times of selling used parts

470
00:25:35,920 --> 00:25:38,960
Speaker 1: and claiming they were new. They would get old computers,

471
00:25:39,000 --> 00:25:40,919
Speaker 1: they would cannibalize the parts, they put them into a

472
00:25:40,960 --> 00:25:43,879
Speaker 1: new computer, send it back out, And you're not supposed

473
00:25:43,880 --> 00:25:46,040
Speaker 1: to do that. You're not supposed to claim it's new anyway,

474
00:25:46,040 --> 00:25:48,320
Speaker 1: because that's false advertising. Really, you're saying you get an

475
00:25:48,320 --> 00:25:51,440
Speaker 1: old new computer and you're actually getting a refurbished one. Really.

476
00:25:52,119 --> 00:25:54,640
Speaker 1: Um So that was one of the big problems now

477
00:25:54,640 --> 00:25:58,560
Speaker 1: these days, not necessarily the case, but that did plague

478
00:25:58,600 --> 00:26:00,879
Speaker 1: them for quite some time. Yeah. I would just on

479
00:26:00,960 --> 00:26:03,360
Speaker 1: a note, I would recommend checking out any computer you're

480
00:26:03,440 --> 00:26:07,600
Speaker 1: seriously considering purchasing, uh, just to see because anybody can

481
00:26:07,640 --> 00:26:09,800
Speaker 1: make a dud. Well and and I mean I I

482
00:26:09,920 --> 00:26:12,479
Speaker 1: remember when I was looking at Gateway computers, I had

483
00:26:12,480 --> 00:26:15,520
Speaker 1: a friend of mine cautioned me against it because he said, well,

484
00:26:15,560 --> 00:26:18,639
Speaker 1: the reason why Gateway computers are so inexpensive would be

485
00:26:18,640 --> 00:26:21,439
Speaker 1: because they get there. You know what they get their

486
00:26:21,480 --> 00:26:24,320
Speaker 1: various parts from whatever the cheapest vendor is at the time.

487
00:26:24,880 --> 00:26:27,280
Speaker 1: But the problem is that you can't always guarantee that

488
00:26:27,320 --> 00:26:29,520
Speaker 1: the parts from one vendor are going to be compatible

489
00:26:29,560 --> 00:26:31,800
Speaker 1: with the other parts you have that make up the

490
00:26:31,840 --> 00:26:37,840
Speaker 1: whole of your computer. Now again, or your mileage may vary.

491
00:26:38,000 --> 00:26:40,720
Speaker 1: You might end up with a computer that works perfectly fine,

492
00:26:41,480 --> 00:26:45,560
Speaker 1: but you might not. Um, we need to. We probably

493
00:26:45,600 --> 00:26:48,119
Speaker 1: need to tail this off. However, I do have a

494
00:26:48,119 --> 00:26:50,840
Speaker 1: couple more that I'll run through quickly, UM, and I'm

495
00:26:50,840 --> 00:26:52,919
Speaker 1: glad we didn't. We went into some PCs because I

496
00:26:52,920 --> 00:26:55,960
Speaker 1: was going to bring up the twentieth Anniversary Mac, which

497
00:26:56,000 --> 00:26:59,840
Speaker 1: was a beautiful black plastic machine that was that looked

498
00:26:59,840 --> 00:27:02,520
Speaker 1: a li'll like the iMac because it was vertical, But

499
00:27:02,520 --> 00:27:05,160
Speaker 1: because it was vertical and they didn't have the same

500
00:27:05,240 --> 00:27:08,040
Speaker 1: CD technology, they had to put in a CD drive

501
00:27:08,080 --> 00:27:11,400
Speaker 1: that was slower than the others. Um, then you might

502
00:27:11,400 --> 00:27:15,200
Speaker 1: find in another computer and it was underpowered and overpriced

503
00:27:15,240 --> 00:27:18,200
Speaker 1: and basically didn't take off. I also want to mention

504
00:27:18,240 --> 00:27:24,159
Speaker 1: the PC JR from IBM actual chickolate keyboard and the

505
00:27:24,200 --> 00:27:28,359
Speaker 1: PS one. Both of those were problematic, and then a

506
00:27:28,359 --> 00:27:31,719
Speaker 1: couple of other off the Beaten path ones, the B Box,

507
00:27:32,359 --> 00:27:35,280
Speaker 1: which was a really neat machine from Apple alum Jean

508
00:27:35,359 --> 00:27:40,520
Speaker 1: Luis gass Um, had dual processors in it and its

509
00:27:40,560 --> 00:27:43,200
Speaker 1: own operating system, which a lot of people thought would

510
00:27:43,240 --> 00:27:46,720
Speaker 1: get bought by Apple, except they bought another computer, the

511
00:27:46,720 --> 00:27:50,440
Speaker 1: app and my List the next because they also got

512
00:27:50,480 --> 00:27:53,760
Speaker 1: Steve Jobs in that bargain and incorporated next step o

513
00:27:54,040 --> 00:27:57,639
Speaker 1: s into the Apple New mac os, and uh, the

514
00:27:57,720 --> 00:28:00,639
Speaker 1: b went away. So but both of thes ended up.

515
00:28:00,680 --> 00:28:02,480
Speaker 1: You know, they could have been their own thing, but

516
00:28:02,720 --> 00:28:05,879
Speaker 1: you know, not so much. And that's that's all the

517
00:28:05,920 --> 00:28:09,200
Speaker 1: computers I had. That's I'm done, all right, I am,

518
00:28:09,240 --> 00:28:11,280
Speaker 1: I am tapped out of flops. You know, before you

519
00:28:11,359 --> 00:28:13,879
Speaker 1: send us email, and you might choose to do that

520
00:28:13,960 --> 00:28:16,840
Speaker 1: at at tech stuff at how stuff works dot com.

521
00:28:16,880 --> 00:28:19,120
Speaker 1: But before you do that, tb rate us for our

522
00:28:19,200 --> 00:28:21,840
Speaker 1: choices or mention something. We didn't keep in mind that

523
00:28:21,880 --> 00:28:24,520
Speaker 1: these are our opinions. So you know, we wanted to

524
00:28:24,520 --> 00:28:27,120
Speaker 1: throw out something that we thought were sort of floppy. Yeah,

525
00:28:27,160 --> 00:28:30,679
Speaker 1: and when we're saying flops were not even necessarily saying that,

526
00:28:30,720 --> 00:28:33,840
Speaker 1: we're talking about bad hardware or some of these cases,

527
00:28:33,880 --> 00:28:36,879
Speaker 1: the hardware wasn't bad at all. It's just that didn't succeed,

528
00:28:37,200 --> 00:28:40,240
Speaker 1: and some were financial successes. But we're kind of if

529
00:28:40,240 --> 00:28:42,880
Speaker 1: you on the technology side, so you know, feel free

530
00:28:42,880 --> 00:28:46,120
Speaker 1: to point out, but keep in mind just our two cents, right,

531
00:28:46,520 --> 00:28:49,080
Speaker 1: or maybe five adjusted for inflation. Now, if you want

532
00:28:49,120 --> 00:28:51,720
Speaker 1: to read more about these kind of devices, well, we

533
00:28:51,760 --> 00:28:55,000
Speaker 1: have articles in the Electronics and Computers channels that will

534
00:28:55,080 --> 00:28:57,440
Speaker 1: cover just about everything we've talked about, from p pas

535
00:28:57,480 --> 00:28:59,880
Speaker 1: to computers to everything in between. You can find that

536
00:29:00,080 --> 00:29:03,040
Speaker 1: how stuff Works dot com and we will talk to

537
00:29:03,080 --> 00:29:07,640
Speaker 1: you again really soon. For more on this and thousands

538
00:29:07,640 --> 00:29:11,600
Speaker 1: of other topics, visit how stuff Works dot com and

539
00:29:11,640 --> 00:29:13,560
Speaker 1: be sure to check out the new tech stuff blog

540
00:29:13,760 --> 00:29:20,440
Speaker 1: now on the how Stuff Works homepage, brought to you

541
00:29:20,480 --> 00:29:23,840
Speaker 1: by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are

542
00:29:23,880 --> 00:29:24,040
Speaker 1: you