WEBVTT - Abandoned Tech Projects 0:00:04.480 --> 0:00:12.480 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there, 0:00:12.480 --> 0:00:16.079 and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. 0:00:16.079 --> 0:00:19.400 I'm an executive producer with iHeart Podcasts and how the 0:00:19.480 --> 0:00:23.640 tech are you? So obviously I love talking about technology. 0:00:24.120 --> 0:00:27.400 It's a good thing, considering more than two thousand episodes 0:00:27.440 --> 0:00:29.560 of tech stuff to my name at this point, and 0:00:29.960 --> 0:00:34.640 as the episode on Libra and dem indicates, I also 0:00:34.720 --> 0:00:38.599 love talking about tech products that never actually made it 0:00:38.640 --> 0:00:43.599 to market. With Libra slash dm that was a cryptocurrency 0:00:43.640 --> 0:00:49.440 initially spearheaded by Facebook, but a skeptical regulatory environment sealed 0:00:49.520 --> 0:00:52.360 that project's fate within a couple of years of it 0:00:52.440 --> 0:00:55.440 having been announced. So I thought we could look into 0:00:55.600 --> 0:01:00.120 other technologies that died before consumers could actually decide if, 0:00:59.960 --> 0:01:01.960 you know, they were good products or not. You know, 0:01:02.040 --> 0:01:03.960 the market didn't even get a chance to make a 0:01:04.000 --> 0:01:08.560 decision in these cases. So let's start with a product 0:01:08.600 --> 0:01:11.640 concept that I thought was a really cool idea in 0:01:11.680 --> 0:01:13.920 the first decade of the two thousands, as that was 0:01:13.920 --> 0:01:17.440 coming to an end, I remember seeing the news on 0:01:17.520 --> 0:01:20.640 this and thinking it was pretty cool. I don't even 0:01:20.680 --> 0:01:24.000 remember if Chris and I talked about that on tech 0:01:24.040 --> 0:01:27.360 stuff we might have because it's in that era, the 0:01:27.400 --> 0:01:31.640 early tech stuff days. So I'm talking about the Microsoft Courier. 0:01:32.160 --> 0:01:36.200 So this was at least the concept was a double 0:01:36.319 --> 0:01:40.039 screened tablet device, so it opened up like a book 0:01:40.240 --> 0:01:43.040 or a journal. And you already know this device never 0:01:43.120 --> 0:01:45.520 came out. I mean, that's the title of the episode. 0:01:45.640 --> 0:01:51.760 But Microsoft had abandoned the project before mid twenty ten. 0:01:52.400 --> 0:01:56.520 So sometime in spring of twenty ten, that's when Microsoft 0:01:56.680 --> 0:01:59.560 at least acknowledged that it wasn't working on the project 0:01:59.640 --> 0:02:04.200 any more. They never really announced it. This was not 0:02:04.320 --> 0:02:06.200 something that was announced to the public. It was an 0:02:06.240 --> 0:02:10.320 internal project. Now, considering that the iPad came out at 0:02:10.320 --> 0:02:13.320 the beginning of twenty ten, you could say the Courier 0:02:13.440 --> 0:02:16.640 was kind of Microsoft's attempt to make the tablet form 0:02:16.680 --> 0:02:20.360 factor a compelling consumer item. Like this was a time 0:02:20.400 --> 0:02:24.440 when different companies were trying to take another swing at 0:02:24.440 --> 0:02:27.280 tablet computers. Now that's not to say that there were 0:02:27.320 --> 0:02:31.320 not tablet computers before the iPad came out in January 0:02:31.360 --> 0:02:35.200 twenty ten. There were. Apple is mostly known as a 0:02:35.240 --> 0:02:41.720 company that innovates on existing form factors and often can 0:02:41.800 --> 0:02:45.320 create a market where none existed before, right, because like 0:02:45.360 --> 0:02:49.520 smartphones before the iPhone, they were pretty much the domain 0:02:49.720 --> 0:02:53.480 of executives and maybe a few, like bleeding edge technology, 0:02:53.520 --> 0:02:57.400 early adopter types, but otherwise we were all just coping 0:02:57.440 --> 0:03:01.320 with cell phones. I didn't know anyone who had a smartphone. 0:03:01.320 --> 0:03:03.840 I knew a couple of people who had PDAs personal 0:03:03.880 --> 0:03:06.679 Digital assistance, but that was it. But then the iPhone 0:03:06.680 --> 0:03:09.920 came out and changed everything. People suddenly said, oh, that's 0:03:10.160 --> 0:03:13.639 a really cool piece of technology. It combines a lot 0:03:13.639 --> 0:03:16.280 of things that I find really intriguing. I'm going to 0:03:16.360 --> 0:03:19.640 make that my next phone. And Apple has done that 0:03:19.880 --> 0:03:22.160 over and over again. You know, I'm not the world's 0:03:22.160 --> 0:03:25.160 biggest Apple fan, but I acknowledge that's a company that 0:03:25.240 --> 0:03:29.360 has an amazing track record for convincing people to buy 0:03:29.360 --> 0:03:34.280 into technologies that previously they had dismissed. But before the 0:03:34.320 --> 0:03:37.760 iPad came out, there were tablet computers. They just weren't 0:03:37.800 --> 0:03:41.760 really adopted by the mainstream. They were more commonly found 0:03:42.040 --> 0:03:46.480 in specific occupations like someone who worked on construction sites, 0:03:46.640 --> 0:03:49.840 or you know, land surveyors, or you know, a medical 0:03:49.880 --> 0:03:52.400 staff in a hospital. These were people who were not 0:03:52.840 --> 0:03:55.760 working from a set location. Each day right, Like, they 0:03:55.800 --> 0:03:58.480 weren't sitting at a desk all day. They were moving 0:03:58.480 --> 0:04:02.320 from place to place, and they might need some sort 0:04:02.360 --> 0:04:05.520 of computational device, maybe not one as robust as a 0:04:05.560 --> 0:04:10.480 full computer, but something would be handy, and laptops, even 0:04:10.960 --> 0:04:13.800 by twenty ten, laptops were pretty hefty. They were not 0:04:14.400 --> 0:04:17.919 slims things that you easily carried around. So having a 0:04:17.960 --> 0:04:22.120 tablet made sense for specific kinds of tasks, but for 0:04:22.160 --> 0:04:24.880 the rest of us, tablet computers just seemed like they 0:04:24.880 --> 0:04:27.479 weren't a good fit. Right. They couldn't do everything that 0:04:27.560 --> 0:04:31.240 a computer could do, They couldn't do enough unique things 0:04:31.640 --> 0:04:35.159 for the form factor the limitations just seemed like that 0:04:35.360 --> 0:04:38.320 was a non starter, and often they lacked a user 0:04:38.400 --> 0:04:41.479 interface that was intuitive and easy to use, like a 0:04:41.480 --> 0:04:44.400 lot of these tablet computers had interfaces that had been 0:04:44.400 --> 0:04:49.200 intended for laptop or desktop computers. Converting that over to 0:04:49.360 --> 0:04:53.279 something that's using like say a touchscreen interface that doesn't 0:04:53.279 --> 0:04:56.000 always work out so well. But then came the iPad 0:04:56.240 --> 0:04:59.080 and it really changed things, and I had doubts that 0:04:59.120 --> 0:05:02.400 Apple would succeed where others had failed, but that was again, 0:05:02.520 --> 0:05:05.880 was very shortsighted of me to the extreme really. After all, again, 0:05:05.920 --> 0:05:08.360 Apple had proven with the UI for the iPhone that 0:05:08.480 --> 0:05:11.360 it could create an operating environment that was so intuitive 0:05:11.520 --> 0:05:13.799 that a young child can master it in a matter 0:05:13.839 --> 0:05:18.680 of minutes. It was a responsive user interface, It was attractive, 0:05:18.960 --> 0:05:22.279 it worked, probably the most important part. So Apple saw 0:05:22.360 --> 0:05:25.599 great success in a market that previously had only been 0:05:25.640 --> 0:05:30.000 the very definition of niche. Now I should also mention 0:05:30.480 --> 0:05:33.640 that the Courier reportedly never got so far along the 0:05:33.680 --> 0:05:36.640 process that it was actually on the way to becoming 0:05:36.680 --> 0:05:39.520 a consumer product. It didn't get that far in development. 0:05:39.960 --> 0:05:42.159 It was kind of inn a nebulous phase in which 0:05:42.160 --> 0:05:46.680 a company is exploring possibilities without fully committing to them. So, 0:05:47.200 --> 0:05:49.000 as far as I can tell, there was never a 0:05:49.040 --> 0:05:53.680 point in the Courier's development where Microsoft was actually seriously 0:05:53.760 --> 0:05:57.599 considering putting it into production. So in some ways, the 0:05:57.680 --> 0:06:02.320 Courier doesn't quite qualify for a canceled product because Microsoft 0:06:02.360 --> 0:06:04.960 never actually called it a potential product to begin with, 0:06:05.000 --> 0:06:08.520 at least not publicly. The world first heard about the 0:06:08.600 --> 0:06:13.560 Courier not from a Microsoft representative, but rather from a 0:06:13.680 --> 0:06:18.760 media outlet, specifically Gizmodo. They got their greedy little hands 0:06:18.800 --> 0:06:22.360 on some information about this tablet that was in development, 0:06:22.520 --> 0:06:25.719 including some images of what it might look like in 0:06:25.760 --> 0:06:29.280 its final form factor, and they published this. They showed 0:06:29.279 --> 0:06:33.880 off this concept, you know, this dual screened foldable tablet, 0:06:34.080 --> 0:06:37.320 each of the screens measuring around seven inches on the diagonal. 0:06:37.680 --> 0:06:40.720 It would obviously be a touch sensitive device where you 0:06:40.720 --> 0:06:42.920 would interact with the screen itself. You would be able 0:06:42.960 --> 0:06:46.680 to use a stylus with it to write and select things. 0:06:47.000 --> 0:06:50.920 And it was clearly something that was really interesting. And 0:06:50.960 --> 0:06:55.240 this article comes out before Apple had even announced the iPad, 0:06:55.360 --> 0:06:58.279 But everyone in the world knew that Apple was developing 0:06:58.320 --> 0:07:00.600 its own tablet. It was kind of like a worst 0:07:00.680 --> 0:07:04.520 kept secret sort of thing. The Courier seemed to stand out, however, 0:07:04.880 --> 0:07:08.679 even knowing that Apple was coming out with this tablet device. 0:07:08.920 --> 0:07:11.280 So in a world that was still skeptical that tablet 0:07:11.280 --> 0:07:15.000 computers could become viable consumer products, the Courier actually looked 0:07:15.000 --> 0:07:17.920 like it could stand a chance because it just it 0:07:18.080 --> 0:07:22.880 seemed compelling. The design looked neat. A team in Microsoft 0:07:22.920 --> 0:07:25.560 that ultimately included around one hundred and thirty people were 0:07:25.600 --> 0:07:28.360 hoping to be the ones to succeed where other tablet 0:07:28.400 --> 0:07:32.600 designers had fallen short but that team faced opposition within 0:07:32.640 --> 0:07:36.600 the company itself. Jay Allard, the head of Entertainment and 0:07:36.640 --> 0:07:40.760 Devices at Microsoft, was leading this project, and he had 0:07:40.840 --> 0:07:44.560 also been the leader responsible for the original Xbox as 0:07:44.640 --> 0:07:47.400 well as the Xbox three sixty, so he already had 0:07:47.440 --> 0:07:52.600 success in launching non computer products at Microsoft. Not only 0:07:52.680 --> 0:07:56.000 just success at that he was successful in pushing out 0:07:56.040 --> 0:08:00.120 a product that was not directly linked to Windows, which 0:08:00.120 --> 0:08:04.000 was kind of seen as like the lynchpin for Microsoft 0:08:04.160 --> 0:08:08.320 right the crux of all of Microsoft's products. Xbox was 0:08:08.360 --> 0:08:10.800 outside of that, and it was a huge success. His 0:08:10.880 --> 0:08:13.560 team was building this dual screen tablet device while using 0:08:13.640 --> 0:08:17.040 a modified version of Windows, so in this case he 0:08:17.160 --> 0:08:20.400 wasn't creating an all new operating system. He was, however, 0:08:20.520 --> 0:08:24.360 relying on a I don't know how heavily modified it was. 0:08:24.600 --> 0:08:27.800 I imagined it had to be significantly modified because this 0:08:27.960 --> 0:08:32.120 is before the era of Microsoft building in touch screen 0:08:32.280 --> 0:08:37.520 capabilities within its operating systems. But then there was Steven Sinofsky, 0:08:37.760 --> 0:08:42.400 president of the Windows Division in Microsoft. So Sinofsky's division 0:08:42.520 --> 0:08:45.400 was hard at work on an upcoming version of Windows 0:08:45.720 --> 0:08:49.360 that was meant to be more tablet and touch screen friendly. 0:08:49.920 --> 0:08:53.160 It just wasn't ready. It was in the early stages 0:08:53.200 --> 0:08:56.040 of development, so Snofsky had already shown his worth with 0:08:56.120 --> 0:08:59.319 a launch of Windows seven a Windows seven helped improve 0:08:59.400 --> 0:09:04.040 consumer opinions of the Windows operating system because the previous 0:09:04.160 --> 0:09:07.760 version of Windows, which was Windows Vista, was not met 0:09:07.800 --> 0:09:10.520 with very much approval, which is putting it lightly. Windows 0:09:10.559 --> 0:09:13.920 Vista was heavily criticized for lots of reasons, and the 0:09:14.000 --> 0:09:18.040 generation before that was Windows XP, which a lot of 0:09:18.040 --> 0:09:20.840 people really liked, or at least they found to be 0:09:21.000 --> 0:09:24.319 very useful. I don't know how many people loved Windows XP, 0:09:24.559 --> 0:09:27.880 but they found it to be understandable, like they could 0:09:27.920 --> 0:09:31.280 navigate it. They felt that the changes that Windows Vista 0:09:31.320 --> 0:09:38.360 introduced were confusing and counterproductive. So Sinofsky had helped repair 0:09:38.520 --> 0:09:41.480 Microsoft's reputation with the launch of Windows seven, and he 0:09:41.559 --> 0:09:45.480 had big plans for Windows eight. Those plans, however, were 0:09:45.600 --> 0:09:47.720 for the future. They were a couple of years off, 0:09:47.840 --> 0:09:51.520 so Snofsky had concerns that a touchscreen device running on 0:09:51.559 --> 0:09:55.400 a modified version of an earlier Windows build would ultimately 0:09:55.480 --> 0:09:59.080 hurt Microsoft because if it didn't work, then that was 0:09:59.120 --> 0:10:01.360 going to be a big hit to the reputation there 0:10:01.400 --> 0:10:04.400 had been other tablet devices that had failed in the market, 0:10:04.440 --> 0:10:06.320 and they had become something of a joke. In fact, 0:10:06.320 --> 0:10:08.560 if you go back to the PDA days, the Apple 0:10:08.679 --> 0:10:11.400 Newton is a notable example of this, as it would 0:10:11.400 --> 0:10:14.839 turn out Windows eight had enough flaws to disappoint people 0:10:14.920 --> 0:10:17.800 all by itself. But that's a different story. The fact 0:10:17.800 --> 0:10:20.000 that Windows eight was in development meant that the Courier 0:10:20.040 --> 0:10:22.320 team didn't have access to a UI that was from 0:10:22.360 --> 0:10:26.160 the get go designed to work on different kinds of devices. 0:10:26.320 --> 0:10:29.280 The Courier team also saw the device as a compliment 0:10:29.360 --> 0:10:32.760 to a PC, rather than a replacement for a PC, 0:10:33.040 --> 0:10:36.280 so you wouldn't use a courier instead of a computer. 0:10:36.640 --> 0:10:39.760 You would use a courier in addition to a computer. 0:10:40.160 --> 0:10:42.040 The courier would let you do things like work with 0:10:42.120 --> 0:10:45.880 electronic documents, and it would have handwriting recognitions so that 0:10:45.920 --> 0:10:48.040 you could use a stylus and you could write down 0:10:48.080 --> 0:10:51.080 notes on your screen, which the courier would then transcribe 0:10:51.200 --> 0:10:55.640 into text. You could integrate pictures and sketches into your work. 0:10:55.679 --> 0:10:58.480 You could make sketches for your work, and it could 0:10:58.480 --> 0:11:01.319 be really useful for people like our artists and architects 0:11:01.360 --> 0:11:03.680 and other folks who work closely with mixed media. It 0:11:03.760 --> 0:11:08.240 was kind of envisioned as a creator tool in that regard, 0:11:08.559 --> 0:11:11.520 but it would not be designed to integrate fully with 0:11:11.720 --> 0:11:15.280 other Microsoft products, kind of like the Xbox. The Xbox 0:11:15.360 --> 0:11:17.320 was a departure. The Courier was thought to be a 0:11:17.360 --> 0:11:20.840 departure as well. So, for example, email, while the concept 0:11:20.880 --> 0:11:23.800 of the Courier would allow you to check email through 0:11:23.880 --> 0:11:27.520 like a web based application, the Courier wasn't intended to 0:11:27.559 --> 0:11:31.480 provide full support for something like Microsoft Outlook, and this 0:11:31.600 --> 0:11:36.000 lack of integration with core Microsoft products ended up being 0:11:36.040 --> 0:11:39.320 another strike against the Courier. Not only would the Courier 0:11:39.400 --> 0:11:42.280 need to cluge together a version of Windows that would 0:11:42.320 --> 0:11:45.280 work on a touchscreen device, it would also not directly 0:11:45.320 --> 0:11:50.600 provide a feedback loop into the other Microsoft ecosystem of software. 0:11:50.720 --> 0:11:54.560 And Microsoft has always been about integration, sometimes to the 0:11:54.600 --> 0:11:57.960 point that it has brought legal action against the company 0:11:58.000 --> 0:12:01.440 because Microsoft has stood accused of anti competitive behavior on 0:12:01.520 --> 0:12:04.120 more than one occasion for how the company has integrated 0:12:04.200 --> 0:12:07.880 various applications very deeply into the operating system, thus making 0:12:07.920 --> 0:12:12.040 it challenging for any competitor to actually create a working 0:12:12.240 --> 0:12:15.560 tool on a platform that maintains a dominant market share 0:12:15.600 --> 0:12:17.640 in the PC world. You got to remember that the 0:12:17.679 --> 0:12:22.880 Windows operating system to this day remains an incredibly dominant 0:12:23.120 --> 0:12:27.439 OS for desktop and laptop computers. Now, had these two 0:12:27.520 --> 0:12:30.320 teams united with the idea that the Courier would remain 0:12:30.360 --> 0:12:33.320 in development until the release of Windows eight, whereupon it 0:12:33.360 --> 0:12:37.160 could be a flagship product featuring the new operating system, well, 0:12:37.240 --> 0:12:40.280 Microsoft might be able to compete, but it would still 0:12:40.320 --> 0:12:43.200 be well behind Apple because Windows eight launched in the 0:12:43.240 --> 0:12:46.400 summer of twenty twelve, while by the summer of twenty twelve, 0:12:46.520 --> 0:12:50.000 Apple was already on its third generation iPad. It had 0:12:50.000 --> 0:12:53.440 already kind of established an anchor in that market. And 0:12:53.480 --> 0:12:57.160 to this day, Apple remains dominant in the tablet market. 0:12:57.240 --> 0:13:00.880 There are lots of other tablets out there, but Apple 0:13:01.200 --> 0:13:04.120 has more than a third of the entire market share, 0:13:04.440 --> 0:13:08.200 and the next closest competitor is Samsung, and it's down 0:13:08.360 --> 0:13:11.480 closer to like twenty percent. That's according to Statista dot com. 0:13:11.520 --> 0:13:14.360 By the way, if Microsoft had been able to launch 0:13:14.360 --> 0:13:16.800 the Courier in twenty ten, you know, the same year 0:13:16.800 --> 0:13:20.640 that the original iPad came out, maybe Apple wouldn't have 0:13:20.679 --> 0:13:23.200 had such a huge headstart in the tablet space. Maybe 0:13:23.240 --> 0:13:25.720 the dual screen format of the Courier would have been 0:13:25.840 --> 0:13:29.600 enough to entice consumers to adopt the Windows based tablet, 0:13:29.720 --> 0:13:33.280 or maybe they would be frustrated with that lack of integration. 0:13:33.400 --> 0:13:35.680 Maybe they would think that this is a device that 0:13:35.880 --> 0:13:38.360 almost does what they need, but not quite. I'm not 0:13:38.360 --> 0:13:41.559 sure about that last part. The original iPad was by 0:13:41.600 --> 0:13:45.080 no means a replacement for computers, and it did just fine, 0:13:45.400 --> 0:13:47.840 but that lack of integration may have been really what 0:13:48.080 --> 0:13:52.800 sealed the fate of the Microsoft Courier. Because Microsoft's CEO 0:13:52.920 --> 0:13:57.240 at the time Steve developers, developers, developers, bomber. If you 0:13:57.280 --> 0:13:59.679 don't know what I mean when I'm saying developers over 0:13:59.679 --> 0:14:03.680 and over, go to YouTube search Steve balmert developers and 0:14:03.800 --> 0:14:07.520 get ready to be amazed. Anyway, he was unsure about 0:14:07.520 --> 0:14:09.319 which way to go with the Courier, so he called 0:14:09.360 --> 0:14:13.400 in Bill Gates, co founder of Microsoft, former CEO and chairman, 0:14:13.559 --> 0:14:15.600 to come in and advise him on the matter. And 0:14:15.679 --> 0:14:19.000 Gates thought that the Courier's lack of integration with other 0:14:19.080 --> 0:14:22.320 Microsoft products was a non starter. He didn't see the 0:14:22.400 --> 0:14:25.480 value of a gadget that did not lean heavily on 0:14:25.520 --> 0:14:31.200 Microsoft's existing suite of productivity software, and ultimately Microsoft pulled 0:14:31.200 --> 0:14:33.760 the plug on the project. While the company never officially 0:14:33.840 --> 0:14:36.000 announced the Courier, it did go so far as to 0:14:36.040 --> 0:14:39.600 confirm that development on the product had ended. Considering some 0:14:39.640 --> 0:14:41.960 of the other products that did come out around this time, 0:14:42.080 --> 0:14:45.840 like the Windows Phone or Microsoft Zoom. Maybe it's all 0:14:45.840 --> 0:14:48.440 for the best because those products ultimately got shut down 0:14:48.440 --> 0:14:51.280 when they too failed to compete against Apple and other 0:14:51.400 --> 0:14:54.360 competitors on the market. Maybe the Courier would have met 0:14:54.400 --> 0:14:57.320 the same fate. We'll just never know for sure. Well, 0:14:57.400 --> 0:14:59.760 we've got a lot more to talk about with products 0:14:59.800 --> 0:15:02.120 that never made it to market, but first let's take 0:15:02.200 --> 0:15:14.560 a quick break to think our sponsors welcome back. We 0:15:14.680 --> 0:15:17.320 now turned to a couple of tech projects that were 0:15:17.360 --> 0:15:20.240 canceled quite some time ago, and I'll start with one 0:15:20.280 --> 0:15:24.440 that I wasn't familiar with. That's because it was a 0:15:24.480 --> 0:15:28.960 project that was done by Sinclair Research, So the company 0:15:29.360 --> 0:15:32.880 Sinclair didn't get much traction over here in the United States. However, 0:15:33.000 --> 0:15:37.320 listeners from the UK might very well be familiar with Sinclair. 0:15:37.400 --> 0:15:40.360 It was an electronics company that started in the nineteen seventies. 0:15:40.480 --> 0:15:43.280 It was responsible for the production of personal computers for 0:15:43.320 --> 0:15:46.920 the UK market in the nineteen eighties that didn't stick 0:15:46.920 --> 0:15:50.480 around that long. Sinclair ended up selling its PC assets 0:15:50.480 --> 0:15:53.760 to another company called Armstrad or Armstrad rather in nineteen 0:15:53.800 --> 0:15:58.000 eighty six. Sadly, the founder of Sinclair, Clive Sinclair, passed 0:15:58.040 --> 0:16:00.360 away a few years ago. But back in the mid 0:16:00.440 --> 0:16:03.640 nineteen eighties, when Sinclair was still a thing, engineers at 0:16:03.680 --> 0:16:08.920 the company were brainstorming about creating different types of PCs, 0:16:09.000 --> 0:16:11.280 and there were a couple of different lines of development. 0:16:11.280 --> 0:16:14.600 It wasn't like this was all unified under one project. 0:16:14.640 --> 0:16:16.840 It was more like a bunch of different people working 0:16:16.880 --> 0:16:20.200 on kind of similar ideas all around the same time. 0:16:20.640 --> 0:16:23.680 This particular one I wanted to talk about was meant 0:16:23.720 --> 0:16:25.640 to be a PC that could go toe to toe 0:16:25.680 --> 0:16:28.800 with a couple of other machines that were debuting around 0:16:28.840 --> 0:16:32.760 this same time. Those machines include the Atari st computer 0:16:33.240 --> 0:16:37.040 and more notably the Commodore Amiga, which would eventually just 0:16:37.040 --> 0:16:40.520 become the Amiga. So the code name for Sinclair's project 0:16:40.840 --> 0:16:44.880 was Loki. That would not have been the market name 0:16:44.960 --> 0:16:47.280 for the product like once it hit the market. If 0:16:47.280 --> 0:16:49.440 it had gone that far, it would not have been 0:16:49.440 --> 0:16:51.840 called the Loki. I think that is missing a trick, 0:16:52.000 --> 0:16:54.120 so to speak. I would actually love to have a 0:16:54.120 --> 0:16:57.320 computer called a Loki. In fact, I might even rename 0:16:57.320 --> 0:16:59.960 my personal machine because I just loved that idea, because 0:17:00.120 --> 0:17:03.360 it does feel like I'm working on a trickster God 0:17:03.640 --> 0:17:07.119 some days, particularly when I am getting ready to record 0:17:07.280 --> 0:17:10.000 and then my computer tells me, Hey, don't worry, I'm 0:17:10.000 --> 0:17:13.640 going to reload and update. It's only going to take 0:17:13.680 --> 0:17:17.400 forty five minutes. Meanwhile, I'm just ready to start recording. 0:17:17.920 --> 0:17:22.000 Good times. Anyway, the Sinclair low Key project didn't really 0:17:22.040 --> 0:17:26.320 have enough time to coalesce into anything definitive. According to 0:17:26.560 --> 0:17:30.359 Martin Brennan, an engineer who spoke with The Register about 0:17:30.400 --> 0:17:33.199 the low Key project, it never got so far where 0:17:33.640 --> 0:17:37.280 someone even made conceptual drawings of what the computer would 0:17:37.280 --> 0:17:40.200 look like. So low Ki was only in the earliest 0:17:40.200 --> 0:17:45.120 stages of ideation before the whole rug got pulled out 0:17:45.160 --> 0:17:48.119 from underneath the project. So it was more like a 0:17:48.160 --> 0:17:53.840 collection of ideas that were intended to achieve a particular goal. 0:17:54.280 --> 0:17:57.960 And this wasn't just for bragging rights. It wasn't just hey, 0:17:58.040 --> 0:18:01.200 let's make a computer that can go toe to toe 0:18:01.240 --> 0:18:04.760 with the Amiga. It could really appeal to, say gamers, 0:18:04.840 --> 0:18:07.320 because the Amiga was known as a machine that was 0:18:07.560 --> 0:18:10.400 phenomenal when it came to graphics and sound. I mean 0:18:10.400 --> 0:18:14.399 when you compared the Amiga against other computers of that era, 0:18:14.760 --> 0:18:17.920 Amiga's performance for sound and graphics it was just a 0:18:17.960 --> 0:18:20.960 head and shoulders above all the competition. So it wasn't 0:18:21.080 --> 0:18:22.760 just to say, hey, we can make a computer that 0:18:22.800 --> 0:18:25.560 can do that too, And it wasn't really a market 0:18:25.600 --> 0:18:29.359 demand issue in the UK necessarily. Rather it came down 0:18:29.440 --> 0:18:34.040 to a matter of taxes, and then later on the 0:18:34.119 --> 0:18:38.280 conclusion of the story is due to Amstrad's acquisition of Sinclair. 0:18:38.560 --> 0:18:41.240 But the taxes thing is a little bit bonkers to me. 0:18:41.400 --> 0:18:44.600 It's also it's outside my wheelhouse. But according to the Register, 0:18:44.880 --> 0:18:47.400 in the mid nineteen eighties, like around nineteen eighty four, 0:18:47.800 --> 0:18:52.440 the government in Spain created rules that would place taxes 0:18:52.520 --> 0:18:56.360 on computers sold in Spain if those computers sported up 0:18:56.400 --> 0:18:59.840 to sixty four kilobytes of memory or less. If you 0:18:59.840 --> 0:19:02.480 were to offer computers that had more than sixty four 0:19:02.600 --> 0:19:06.000 kilobytes of memory, the taxes didn't apply. There was like 0:19:06.080 --> 0:19:08.760 a loophole you could create. As long as you were 0:19:08.760 --> 0:19:12.040 selling computers with more memory than sixty four kilobytes, you 0:19:12.040 --> 0:19:14.159 were not going to be hit by those taxes. So 0:19:14.280 --> 0:19:17.360 now all these computer companies have an incentive to develop 0:19:17.800 --> 0:19:20.399 computers with more memory in order to be able to 0:19:20.440 --> 0:19:23.080 sell them without having to deal with these higher tax rates. 0:19:23.280 --> 0:19:24.879 I don't know if that was the intent of the 0:19:25.520 --> 0:19:29.000 tax law, Like, was this something that Spain was passing 0:19:29.040 --> 0:19:32.800 to push computer companies to put out more advanced machines, 0:19:33.080 --> 0:19:37.160 or was this a matter where Spanish legislators were looking 0:19:37.200 --> 0:19:41.919 to tax businesses and didn't think enough ahead to allow 0:19:41.960 --> 0:19:46.520 for higher amounts of memory to be considered under the 0:19:46.520 --> 0:19:49.720 same tax law. I don't know the answer to that question, 0:19:49.920 --> 0:19:52.560 but it did end up being a financial incentive to 0:19:52.680 --> 0:19:55.040 create machines that had one hundred and twenty eight kilobytes 0:19:55.040 --> 0:19:59.840 of memory or more. And LOKI was Sinclaire's approach to 0:20:00.040 --> 0:20:02.960 fill that niche or one of their approaches, I should say, 0:20:02.960 --> 0:20:05.600 because like I said, there were multiple projects that were 0:20:05.640 --> 0:20:08.359 in development around this time. In addition, the idea was 0:20:08.400 --> 0:20:11.199 to have a machine capable of generating superior graphics and 0:20:11.280 --> 0:20:14.960 audio to other computers that were found in the Sinclair line. 0:20:15.080 --> 0:20:18.360 So the low Key was intended to have a MIDI 0:20:18.520 --> 0:20:22.520 interface that would give the capabilities of a commercial synthesizer. 0:20:22.800 --> 0:20:26.560 The graphics hardware would quote allow better animation effects than 0:20:26.600 --> 0:20:30.360 any existing home computer and will allow cartoon quality graphics 0:20:30.520 --> 0:20:33.400 end quote. That's from that piece in the register. And 0:20:33.560 --> 0:20:37.160 it was intended to be compatible with CD systems from 0:20:37.160 --> 0:20:39.080 one a read, which is kind of a novelty. In 0:20:39.119 --> 0:20:43.159 the mid nineteen eighties, CDs were not yet widely accepted, 0:20:43.359 --> 0:20:46.560 and so that was kind of a really advanced concept. 0:20:46.800 --> 0:20:49.920 It was also meant to facilitate stuff like home video production, 0:20:50.040 --> 0:20:53.160 so that you could do things like create more advanced 0:20:53.200 --> 0:20:56.200 home videos, including the ability to do stuff like insert 0:20:56.320 --> 0:20:59.520 captions into video. That was something that you know, unless 0:20:59.520 --> 0:21:02.760 you were working at a television broadcast editing station, you 0:21:02.800 --> 0:21:05.359 typically didn't have access to that kind of thing. It 0:21:05.400 --> 0:21:08.320 was also meant to be a pretty affordable computer, selling 0:21:08.400 --> 0:21:11.800 for quote less than two hundred pounds end quote. All 0:21:11.840 --> 0:21:13.520 of this, by the way, is according to a paper 0:21:13.560 --> 0:21:18.120 titled the Specification of this Super Spectrum Entertainment Engine. Now, 0:21:18.160 --> 0:21:22.160 not everything about this computer was bleeding edge technology. For example, 0:21:22.200 --> 0:21:27.280 the low Key design also integrated a cassette deck. This 0:21:27.440 --> 0:21:31.560 was for saving and retrieving data, so rather than a 0:21:31.560 --> 0:21:35.080 floppy disk drive, perhaps in addition to one, you would 0:21:35.080 --> 0:21:38.560 have a cassette drive. And that wasn't unique to Sinclair 0:21:38.600 --> 0:21:40.840 by any means, but it does seem a little strange 0:21:40.840 --> 0:21:43.240 to talk about cassette drives once we're into the era 0:21:43.320 --> 0:21:46.280 of the mid nineteen eighties. In my experience, most of 0:21:46.320 --> 0:21:48.360 the home computers, at least here in the States had 0:21:48.400 --> 0:21:50.560 already moved on to floppy drives. At that point, you 0:21:50.600 --> 0:21:54.280 didn't really see a lot of computers that used cassette drives. 0:21:54.560 --> 0:21:56.800 Some of the ones in the nineteen seventies did, but 0:21:56.840 --> 0:22:00.359 by the nineteen eighties, floppy drives were pretty much standard. Portunately, 0:22:00.680 --> 0:22:03.840 Sinclair would never really get the chance to develop Loki. Further, 0:22:04.280 --> 0:22:08.760 the sale of assets to Amstrad would kill not just Loki, 0:22:08.800 --> 0:22:12.560 but other projects that were in development that various Sinclair 0:22:12.600 --> 0:22:15.800 engineers had been working on, so Loki never emerged from 0:22:15.840 --> 0:22:20.119 that ideation stage. The Register article about the abandoned Sinclair 0:22:20.119 --> 0:22:22.560 projects mentions that it was at least a year out 0:22:22.560 --> 0:22:25.800 from even hitting a prototype phase, so it was still 0:22:26.040 --> 0:22:29.240 fairly early on in development. But hearing about it, I 0:22:29.840 --> 0:22:32.320 really wish it had become a thing. One because I 0:22:32.320 --> 0:22:34.400 think it would have been interesting to see another computer 0:22:34.800 --> 0:22:37.840 kind of going head to head against Amiga in the 0:22:37.880 --> 0:22:42.240 performance department in graphics and sound, and partly because I mean, 0:22:42.280 --> 0:22:44.480 I love the idea of a computer that, at least 0:22:44.480 --> 0:22:47.800 at one point was called Loki. Our next abandoned tech 0:22:47.840 --> 0:22:51.879 product was announced back in January twenty eleven at that 0:22:52.040 --> 0:22:57.000 year's CEES aka the Consumer Electronics Showcase. I was actually 0:22:57.080 --> 0:23:01.119 present at that CEES, but I have did this particular 0:23:01.640 --> 0:23:05.360 press announcement because I already knew a little bit about it. 0:23:05.720 --> 0:23:07.720 I knew that the person who had been booked to 0:23:07.880 --> 0:23:11.800 make this press announcement was Lady Gaga, and y'all, I 0:23:11.920 --> 0:23:14.679 love me some Lady Gaga. I think she's an incredibly 0:23:14.680 --> 0:23:18.199 talented performer. I think she's an amazing entertainer. But the 0:23:18.240 --> 0:23:22.600 exhibit hall of CEES is already full of monsters, little 0:23:22.640 --> 0:23:25.439 and otherwise, and I didn't want to subject myself to 0:23:25.600 --> 0:23:29.919