WEBVTT - Go Go Gadget Vaporware! 0:00:04.120 --> 0:00:07.160 Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how 0:00:07.200 --> 0:00:13.640 stuff works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. 0:00:13.680 --> 0:00:16.640 I am your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer 0:00:16.680 --> 0:00:19.760 at how Stuff Works in a love all things tech, 0:00:20.520 --> 0:00:25.599 and today we're going to talk about a pretty amazing subject, vaporware. 0:00:25.640 --> 0:00:28.000 We're gonna do this for a couple of episodes. Actually, 0:00:28.600 --> 0:00:31.920 this one we're going to talk about hardware that is vaporware, 0:00:32.040 --> 0:00:36.880 or that was vaporware, or that never was. It gets complicated, 0:00:36.920 --> 0:00:38.600 and in our next episode we're going to focus more 0:00:38.640 --> 0:00:43.279 on software. So what exactly is vaporware? Vaporware is a 0:00:43.320 --> 0:00:47.760 future product that someone has announced, but one that is 0:00:47.800 --> 0:00:52.919 not yet available for purchase and possibly never will be available. 0:00:53.240 --> 0:00:56.240 These are products that could still be in development, or 0:00:56.440 --> 0:00:59.120 they could be in a design phase, and they might 0:00:59.200 --> 0:01:01.600 never see the light of day. So vaporware is kind 0:01:01.600 --> 0:01:06.400 of a you can't call it a definitive classification. Not 0:01:06.560 --> 0:01:11.520 everything or remain vaporware. Some stuff may eventually emerge from 0:01:11.600 --> 0:01:16.160 vaporware to become an actual product. Some stuff may ultimately 0:01:16.240 --> 0:01:18.560 collapse in on itself, and you could say, well it 0:01:18.640 --> 0:01:22.399 was vaporware because it never came out. But vaporware itself 0:01:22.440 --> 0:01:25.199 is sort of a transition. Now, you don't want your 0:01:25.400 --> 0:01:28.399 product to be classified as vaporware because that comes with 0:01:28.480 --> 0:01:35.200 it some pretty bad implied messaging, things like we have 0:01:35.360 --> 0:01:38.080 the intent to bring this product to market, but we 0:01:38.120 --> 0:01:41.560 don't know how to yet, or wouldn't this product be 0:01:41.600 --> 0:01:45.240 a great idea give us your money. So vaporware is 0:01:45.280 --> 0:01:48.800 not necessarily something you want to have associated with you 0:01:48.960 --> 0:01:52.040 or your products. And uh, this episode is sort of 0:01:52.040 --> 0:01:54.840 a preview of some stuff I'll be talking about in 0:01:55.000 --> 0:01:58.000 upcoming episodes for tech Stuff, because we are fast approaching 0:01:58.360 --> 0:02:03.480 episode one thousand, one thousand episodes of tech Stuff, And 0:02:03.480 --> 0:02:06.560 in that episode one thousand, I'll be dedicating a discussion 0:02:06.600 --> 0:02:09.880 about critical thinking and skepticism in general and how we 0:02:09.919 --> 0:02:13.360 can apply those skills towards technology in particular. And then 0:02:13.400 --> 0:02:17.000 I planned to do an episode about hoaxes and scams 0:02:17.000 --> 0:02:24.000 in technology stuff that was pretty clearly uh a falsehood 0:02:24.120 --> 0:02:26.359 from the beginning, And I need to be clear that 0:02:26.440 --> 0:02:30.920 vapor where is not necessarily a falsehood. There are many 0:02:31.120 --> 0:02:36.840 cases where companies and people probably believe they were going 0:02:36.880 --> 0:02:39.519 to bring this product to market and it just didn't happen. 0:02:39.680 --> 0:02:42.160 So I don't think that all vaporware I list in 0:02:42.200 --> 0:02:45.520 this episode represents an outright attempt to deceive people. Like 0:02:45.560 --> 0:02:48.359 I said, some of them may have been, but I'm 0:02:48.400 --> 0:02:50.960 willing to extend the benefit of the doubt and assume 0:02:51.040 --> 0:02:53.120 that most, if not all, of the products that I 0:02:53.120 --> 0:02:55.680 will be talking about, we're actually supposed to come out 0:02:55.720 --> 0:02:58.880 at some point, and they just did not for various reasons, 0:02:59.639 --> 0:03:02.400 uh legitimate reasons. As opposed to this was someone who 0:03:02.480 --> 0:03:05.120 is just trying to scare up a whole bunch of 0:03:05.120 --> 0:03:09.160 money really quickly. And I've talked extensively about some examples 0:03:09.160 --> 0:03:13.280 of vaporware in their own episodes, notably the Phantom game console. 0:03:13.400 --> 0:03:15.560 I did a full episode dedicated to that, but here's 0:03:15.560 --> 0:03:19.480 a quick refresher. The Phantom was supposed to be a 0:03:19.600 --> 0:03:24.079 video game console that relied exclusively on digital delivery. You 0:03:24.120 --> 0:03:28.160 would download games to your console directly over the Internet, 0:03:28.480 --> 0:03:30.720 and the idea was ahead of its time, and some 0:03:30.800 --> 0:03:33.160 of the folks in charge of the company had a 0:03:33.200 --> 0:03:36.520 bit of a shady reputation. But I still think that 0:03:36.560 --> 0:03:38.680 a lot of people who were involved on the Phantom 0:03:38.760 --> 0:03:41.320 team had every reason to believe that the thing they 0:03:41.320 --> 0:03:44.240 were working on would one day become a real product. 0:03:44.680 --> 0:03:46.640 I can't say for certain the folks at the top 0:03:46.760 --> 0:03:49.600 shared that belief. They may have been running a scam 0:03:49.680 --> 0:03:53.120 the whole time, but I know people who were attached 0:03:53.120 --> 0:03:55.000 to it really thought that they were working on something 0:03:55.040 --> 0:03:57.920 that was going to be an actual consumer product. At 0:03:57.960 --> 0:04:00.400 the end of the day. The phantom never or fist, 0:04:00.400 --> 0:04:02.600 which led to a lot of jokes about the phantom 0:04:02.880 --> 0:04:06.280 never materializing. But since I've done a full episode about 0:04:06.320 --> 0:04:09.040 that product that never was, I'm going to look at 0:04:09.120 --> 0:04:11.800 other gadgets that were promoted at some point by a 0:04:11.840 --> 0:04:16.200 company but never actually became a thing you could actually buy. So, 0:04:16.560 --> 0:04:19.520 sticking to the realm of video games, that is a 0:04:19.520 --> 0:04:23.000 a wealthy treasure trove of examples of vaporware, even if 0:04:23.000 --> 0:04:26.039 you're talking about the hardware side of things. Let's talk 0:04:26.040 --> 0:04:29.400 about the retro VGs a k a. The coll Eco 0:04:29.520 --> 0:04:34.360 Chameleon a k a. The Retro Chameleon. This vaporware game 0:04:34.440 --> 0:04:37.440 console gives proof to the old adage if it seems 0:04:37.480 --> 0:04:41.400 too good to be true, it probably is, although again 0:04:41.600 --> 0:04:46.520 not necessarily meant to be a way to fool people. First, 0:04:46.560 --> 0:04:49.359 this console was meant to be a cartridge based game 0:04:49.480 --> 0:04:52.960 system with no connectivity to the Internet, kind of like 0:04:53.000 --> 0:04:56.200 a throwback to the old classic cartridge based game systems, 0:04:56.200 --> 0:04:59.520 things like the Atari twenty, the coll Eco Vision and 0:04:59.640 --> 0:05:03.400 tele Vision, the Nintendo Entertainment System, the Super Nintendo, the 0:05:03.440 --> 0:05:07.160 Nintendo sixty four, the Atari Jaguar, all of these cartridge 0:05:07.160 --> 0:05:10.680 based systems, and the value proposition for this device. The 0:05:11.080 --> 0:05:14.680 selling point was that games were going to be complete 0:05:14.680 --> 0:05:17.840 experiences the moment they hit store shelves. They would have 0:05:17.960 --> 0:05:20.000 to be because the whole game would have to exist 0:05:20.200 --> 0:05:23.080 on the cartridge. There was no way to patch or 0:05:23.240 --> 0:05:26.719 update games. There's no way to get downloadable content because 0:05:26.720 --> 0:05:29.599 the console itself would not connect to the internet. The 0:05:29.680 --> 0:05:32.400 developer for the console argued that this would be a 0:05:32.440 --> 0:05:35.800 return to the old days of gaming, where a player 0:05:35.839 --> 0:05:38.080 could be assured that the title he or she picked 0:05:38.160 --> 0:05:41.920 up was a playable, complete game. There'd be no need 0:05:42.000 --> 0:05:44.440 for a day one download. So this was sort of 0:05:44.640 --> 0:05:48.680 a response to a trend in video games where you 0:05:48.720 --> 0:05:51.839 go out, you buy a brand new game, and whether 0:05:51.920 --> 0:05:54.560 you have a physical copy of it or you buy 0:05:54.560 --> 0:05:58.039 it digitally, once you installed on your machine, immediately the 0:05:58.080 --> 0:06:00.800 machine searches for a download and arts to download a 0:06:00.880 --> 0:06:04.480 day one patch. Why because the game when it went out, 0:06:04.640 --> 0:06:07.719 when it shipped, when it went gold, was not actually 0:06:07.720 --> 0:06:11.279 complete and the developers were still working on things. And 0:06:11.800 --> 0:06:16.559 while the game had been mastered and sent out, uh, 0:06:16.600 --> 0:06:19.160 they were still working on code to make sure everything 0:06:19.200 --> 0:06:23.200 was playable, patching bugs, fixing things, um, all that sort 0:06:23.240 --> 0:06:25.680 of stuff. And a lot of gamers get sick and 0:06:25.680 --> 0:06:28.880 tired of this. They think, well, by the time the 0:06:28.920 --> 0:06:31.400 game comes out for purchase, it should be a complete game. 0:06:31.440 --> 0:06:35.000 I shouldn't be waiting for another patch to make the 0:06:35.040 --> 0:06:38.800 game I just bought playable. So this game console was 0:06:38.920 --> 0:06:42.760 kind of a response to that, saying we should create 0:06:42.800 --> 0:06:47.240 a console that forces game developers to create a full 0:06:47.800 --> 0:06:50.880 game from start to finish. There's no way to patch it, 0:06:50.920 --> 0:06:52.680 there's no way to update it, so they have to 0:06:52.720 --> 0:06:55.360 be certain that their game works. They have to test it, 0:06:55.720 --> 0:06:58.240 and then they have to go through the whole manufacturing process. 0:06:58.279 --> 0:07:01.280 There's no way to just deliver the code. You actually 0:07:01.279 --> 0:07:05.760 have to hard code the game onto cartridges, which actually 0:07:05.960 --> 0:07:08.200 puts up a pretty big barrier to entry. It's not 0:07:08.400 --> 0:07:12.880 a cheap thing to do. Cartridge as though, have their benefits. 0:07:12.880 --> 0:07:15.400 They allow for some pretty fast load times. For example, 0:07:15.440 --> 0:07:19.440 there's no need for a an optical drive to locate 0:07:19.800 --> 0:07:23.240 a point on a on a disc and read information 0:07:23.280 --> 0:07:25.960 off of it. Cartridge games load very very quickly, but 0:07:26.000 --> 0:07:30.200 they also tend to have a limited storage space on them, 0:07:30.200 --> 0:07:33.600 and the retro console designers said that their special fpg 0:07:33.840 --> 0:07:37.720 A circuitry would allow for all sorts of retro based gameplay. 0:07:37.920 --> 0:07:40.000 F p g A, by the way, stands for field 0:07:40.040 --> 0:07:44.440 programmable gait array, and it essentially means that there's an 0:07:44.440 --> 0:07:49.120 integrated circuit in this device, and it's a blank slate. 0:07:49.360 --> 0:07:51.600 It can be configured by the end user. That's what 0:07:51.720 --> 0:07:56.120 the field programmable part comes from. That you can program 0:07:56.240 --> 0:07:58.320 this blank circuit in the field to make it do 0:07:58.400 --> 0:08:00.480 whatever it is you need it to do. So, in 0:08:00.480 --> 0:08:03.160 this case, the console itself would be an f p 0:08:03.320 --> 0:08:06.680 g A and the cartridges would contain the information that 0:08:06.720 --> 0:08:11.160 would essentially reprogram the console to make it behave like 0:08:11.800 --> 0:08:14.640 a specific type of console to run the code that's 0:08:14.680 --> 0:08:18.360 on that cartridge, whether it's emulating an S and E 0:08:18.560 --> 0:08:21.280 S style game or an Atari Jaguar style game or 0:08:21.320 --> 0:08:24.520 something like that, not that it was meant to play 0:08:24.560 --> 0:08:28.120 those old games that wasn't the point. This wasn't a 0:08:28.160 --> 0:08:31.280 clone console where you could shove an old S and 0:08:31.320 --> 0:08:36.320 E S cartridge into the console and play a classic game. Instead, 0:08:36.600 --> 0:08:39.600 it was to create a new ecosystem based off that 0:08:39.800 --> 0:08:43.360 style of game, the old retro games. So you would 0:08:43.360 --> 0:08:47.440 be making brand new games based off that old style 0:08:47.559 --> 0:08:50.360 of game making, and they would have that kind of 0:08:50.480 --> 0:08:53.920 retro look to them and that retro gameplay field to them, 0:08:54.160 --> 0:08:57.400 but they would be brand new titles. Originally, the project 0:08:57.480 --> 0:09:00.600 was pitched to kick Starter in early twenty team, but 0:09:00.720 --> 0:09:04.040 the team chose instead to port the project over to 0:09:04.160 --> 0:09:08.440 indie Go Go, allegedly because they did not have a 0:09:08.480 --> 0:09:11.760 working prototype to prove their hardware was actually feasible, and 0:09:11.760 --> 0:09:16.760 by Kickstarter was starting to get a little wary about 0:09:16.880 --> 0:09:20.680 tech based projects because there had been some pretty high 0:09:20.760 --> 0:09:24.360 profile failures on Kickstarter. I'll do an episode about that 0:09:24.440 --> 0:09:28.200 kind of stuff in the near future. So the company 0:09:28.240 --> 0:09:31.320 would cancel the indie Go Go campaign about a week 0:09:31.320 --> 0:09:34.120 in because it became clear the campaign was not going 0:09:34.160 --> 0:09:36.400 to have the momentum they would need to hit their goals. 0:09:36.440 --> 0:09:39.400 They had some pretty lofty goals, and while they raised 0:09:39.440 --> 0:09:42.720 something like eighty thousand dollars in their Indie Go Go campaign. 0:09:43.800 --> 0:09:46.520 Eighty thou dollars within a week was not tracking for 0:09:46.600 --> 0:09:50.120 them to actually hit their goals. Typically in crowdfunding campaigns, 0:09:50.120 --> 0:09:53.880 by the way, you make the most of your money 0:09:53.920 --> 0:09:56.240 in the very first week and the very last few 0:09:56.320 --> 0:09:58.920 days of a campaign. The middle section tends to be 0:09:59.000 --> 0:10:01.920 pretty quiet, So if you don't have a huge amount 0:10:01.920 --> 0:10:04.520 of momentum going into your campaign, you're probably not going 0:10:04.559 --> 0:10:07.800 to hit your goals. Well. The team would eventually show 0:10:07.800 --> 0:10:11.439 off a prototype of this retro video game system and 0:10:11.520 --> 0:10:14.640 the New York Toy Fair in February, but the only 0:10:14.679 --> 0:10:17.600 games they showed off were old S S n E 0:10:17.800 --> 0:10:20.480 S titles and they were plugged into a case that 0:10:20.520 --> 0:10:22.960 looked like in the old Attari Jaguar. They said, well, 0:10:23.000 --> 0:10:25.319 we got the molds for the Atari Jaguar, and that's 0:10:25.320 --> 0:10:29.320 what's going to be the casing for our our new console. 0:10:29.720 --> 0:10:32.439 But folks began to suspect the team was just using 0:10:32.600 --> 0:10:35.360 an S and E S circuit board that was housed 0:10:35.360 --> 0:10:39.240 in a repurposed Attori Jaguar case. A second planned kick 0:10:39.280 --> 0:10:41.880 started campaign failed to launch in that same month, the 0:10:41.920 --> 0:10:45.400 February sixteen. The company then posted a photo of what 0:10:45.440 --> 0:10:47.240 was said to be an early build of the console 0:10:47.320 --> 0:10:50.080 that which was now branded the Colleco Chameleon, And in 0:10:50.120 --> 0:10:52.760 the photo there was a clear case and you could 0:10:52.800 --> 0:10:55.800 see the circuit board inside the case, which I thought 0:10:55.800 --> 0:10:58.800 was a pretty cool design choice, except for the fact 0:10:58.880 --> 0:11:01.640 that people began to point now that the circuit board 0:11:02.000 --> 0:11:06.959 bore a striking resemblance to a CCTV DVR video capture card. 0:11:07.600 --> 0:11:11.120 They were actually naming the specific card it appeared to be, 0:11:11.600 --> 0:11:16.080 So this was not a a console motherboard or circuit board. 0:11:16.400 --> 0:11:18.760 It was instead a card that you would put into 0:11:18.760 --> 0:11:22.720 a computer in order to give it DVR capabilities. So 0:11:22.880 --> 0:11:26.320 then that image, that promotional image, disappeared from the company's 0:11:26.440 --> 0:11:29.000 social media accounts, but the damage had already been done. 0:11:29.440 --> 0:11:32.960 Collico demanded that their branding be removed from the device 0:11:33.120 --> 0:11:36.480 after the console team was unable to provide for Colico 0:11:36.600 --> 0:11:40.440 a working demonstration of the gadget, and the whole project 0:11:40.480 --> 0:11:44.120 pretty much fizzled out at that moment. Now, again, I 0:11:44.240 --> 0:11:47.320 don't want to suggest that this console was a scam 0:11:47.400 --> 0:11:50.360 or anything, although there was some very questionable choices that 0:11:50.400 --> 0:11:54.160 were made to show off these devices that clearly were 0:11:54.240 --> 0:11:57.719 not the retro video game system. It may well have 0:11:58.240 --> 0:12:00.400 been that the team in charge really one to create 0:12:00.440 --> 0:12:02.840 a console that catered to a certain breed of gamer, 0:12:03.360 --> 0:12:06.800 and they just kept running into challenges during the design phase. 0:12:07.160 --> 0:12:11.520 Perhaps they made some extremely ill advised decisions to showcase 0:12:11.559 --> 0:12:15.000 stuff that wasn't their actual design, all in an effort 0:12:15.040 --> 0:12:17.319 to keep support going for a project that was in 0:12:17.440 --> 0:12:19.800 danger of failing due to lack of funds. So, in 0:12:19.840 --> 0:12:22.439 other words, they just were trying to get more investment 0:12:22.760 --> 0:12:25.240 until they could catch up and actually produce the thing 0:12:25.280 --> 0:12:27.760 they wanted to make. But whether they made those choices 0:12:27.800 --> 0:12:31.080 poorly due to an act of desperation, or they were 0:12:31.120 --> 0:12:33.960 trying to fleece gamers, the result is the same. It 0:12:34.000 --> 0:12:38.160 never became a reality. Next, how about the Sega VR headset. 0:12:38.240 --> 0:12:41.840 In nineteen eighty nine, Sega had released the Sega Genesis 0:12:41.880 --> 0:12:44.720 in the United States. Uh that system had already debuted 0:12:44.720 --> 0:12:47.840 in Japan in nine. It was called the Mega Drive there. 0:12:47.880 --> 0:12:50.120 In fact, the Mega Drive is pretty much what the 0:12:50.120 --> 0:12:53.280 rest of the world calls this particular gaming console. In 0:12:53.320 --> 0:12:56.079 the US, we called it the Genesis. But Sega was 0:12:56.120 --> 0:12:58.760 doing really well for itself by the early nineties and 0:12:58.760 --> 0:13:01.839 In nine, the company first announced it was working on 0:13:01.880 --> 0:13:04.760 a home video game system peripheral that would be a 0:13:04.840 --> 0:13:08.600 VR headset. Now, at the time, virtual reality had generated 0:13:08.720 --> 0:13:11.560 a lot of buzz and excitement. This was back during 0:13:11.600 --> 0:13:15.160 the first real frenzy around virtual reality. This was the 0:13:15.160 --> 0:13:17.680 one that would eventually result in a bubble collapsing in 0:13:17.760 --> 0:13:22.760 on itself and destroying an entire group of technologies for 0:13:22.800 --> 0:13:26.000 about a decade, but in VR seemed like it was 0:13:26.000 --> 0:13:29.200 gonna be the next big thing. So Sega had a 0:13:29.240 --> 0:13:33.760 big prototype to show off in nine at various trade shows, 0:13:33.840 --> 0:13:36.840 and it planned to release the consumer model in At 0:13:36.880 --> 0:13:39.559 least that's what they announced. The headset featured a pair 0:13:39.600 --> 0:13:41.880 of l c D screens and speakers that would fit 0:13:41.920 --> 0:13:44.600 over your ears, It had sensors for head tracking, and 0:13:44.640 --> 0:13:46.680 there were at least a few games that were in 0:13:46.720 --> 0:13:50.360 development for the peripheral, and then Sega stopped talking about it. 0:13:50.679 --> 0:13:53.920 I'll mention of the VR headset disappeared. Later, the company 0:13:53.920 --> 0:13:56.120 would claim that the problem was that the experience of 0:13:56.200 --> 0:13:59.400 the headset delivered was just too darn realistic, and that 0:13:59.480 --> 0:14:01.880 there was a year that users might hurt themselves while 0:14:01.920 --> 0:14:05.240 wearing the headset because everything was two gosh darn real 0:14:05.320 --> 0:14:08.640 when you wore it. But some people said that maybe 0:14:08.640 --> 0:14:11.160 there were other issues at play here, such as some 0:14:11.720 --> 0:14:15.120 problems with head tracking, the resolution on the screens might 0:14:15.120 --> 0:14:17.360 not have been very good, or maybe there were real 0:14:17.400 --> 0:14:20.560 problems with latency that tends to lead to a nauseating 0:14:20.640 --> 0:14:24.000 experience in VR. Latency is that lag you experience between 0:14:24.160 --> 0:14:27.240 performing and action and having something actually happened in a game. 0:14:27.600 --> 0:14:30.160 So an example in VRS that you're wearing the headset 0:14:30.400 --> 0:14:32.800 and you turn your head to the left, and then 0:14:34.000 --> 0:14:36.680 a half second after you turn your head, your view 0:14:36.720 --> 0:14:40.240 starts to change, and there's that lag between what you 0:14:40.280 --> 0:14:42.680 see what you've done, and what you actually see happening, 0:14:43.040 --> 0:14:46.040 and that kind of gives you this sort of uncomfortable 0:14:46.080 --> 0:14:49.480 motion sickness. It's very off putting. But we never had 0:14:49.520 --> 0:14:53.160 to put off Saga VR headsets because they never came out. Well, 0:14:53.160 --> 0:14:55.280 I've got a lot more vaporware to talk about in 0:14:55.360 --> 0:14:57.760 just a minute, but first let's take a quick break 0:14:57.800 --> 0:15:08.200 to thank our sponsor. Back in the ES, a personal 0:15:08.240 --> 0:15:11.520 computer debut that in many ways left competitors like the 0:15:11.600 --> 0:15:15.400 Macintosh and the various IBMPC clones in the dust. And 0:15:15.440 --> 0:15:18.400 it was called the Amiga. It was the brainchild of 0:15:18.400 --> 0:15:21.320 a designer named J. Minor, who had worked for Atari 0:15:21.760 --> 0:15:24.480 and designed the chip set for the Video computer System 0:15:24.560 --> 0:15:27.440 also known as the VCS and also known as the 0:15:27.480 --> 0:15:31.880 Atari twenty hundred. Minor had advocated for a new machine 0:15:31.960 --> 0:15:35.200 running on more advanced chip sets, but he met with 0:15:35.240 --> 0:15:38.160 some resistance at Atari, so he left the company and 0:15:38.240 --> 0:15:41.520 eventually he landed at another company that had the name 0:15:41.680 --> 0:15:44.480 Hi Toro, and that company wanted to make a video 0:15:44.520 --> 0:15:47.440 game console, and so he started work on it. And 0:15:47.480 --> 0:15:49.560 his idea was, I'll make a video game console that 0:15:49.600 --> 0:15:51.800 can also act as a personal computer. I think that 0:15:51.800 --> 0:15:55.040 would be more interesting. I just will downplay the personal 0:15:55.040 --> 0:15:57.480 computer stuff to my boss is because they're really gung 0:15:57.520 --> 0:16:00.520 ho on this whole video game console idea. But then 0:16:00.720 --> 0:16:05.280 in three the video game market totally crashed, the home 0:16:05.360 --> 0:16:08.200 video game market. That's when all the consoles started going 0:16:08.200 --> 0:16:11.640 out of business. There was a glut of terrible, terrible 0:16:11.680 --> 0:16:15.200 games on the market, and everything collapsed in on itself. 0:16:15.280 --> 0:16:18.360 So then the owners of hy Too were panicking. They said, 0:16:18.920 --> 0:16:22.080 could you maybe instead of making a game console, could 0:16:22.120 --> 0:16:25.640 you make a personal computer? Because personal computers seem like 0:16:25.680 --> 0:16:27.880 they were immune to this problem they could keep going, 0:16:27.920 --> 0:16:30.680 and Miner said, well, here's the good news. That's what 0:16:30.720 --> 0:16:32.720 I've been doing the whole time. I've been working on 0:16:32.760 --> 0:16:37.200 creating this personal computer that also could run games. And 0:16:37.280 --> 0:16:40.320 the company also discovered that Hi Toro was a name 0:16:40.360 --> 0:16:42.880 that another company had over in Japan, so they decided 0:16:42.920 --> 0:16:48.400 to rename themselves Amiga. Commodore, the company behind the insanely 0:16:48.520 --> 0:16:52.560 popular Commodore sixty four computer, would end up acquiring Amiga 0:16:52.640 --> 0:16:56.640 in night four. Amiga was just on the verge of 0:16:56.720 --> 0:16:58.720 running out of cash at that moment. They had not 0:16:58.800 --> 0:17:02.280 yet been able to produce a computer and they were 0:17:02.280 --> 0:17:04.760 in danger of going out of business when Commodore came in, 0:17:05.280 --> 0:17:07.960 and then Commodore was able to pour some more money 0:17:08.040 --> 0:17:10.760 into the development of the Amiga, and the Amiga computer 0:17:10.840 --> 0:17:13.280 became one of the best machines to own if you 0:17:13.440 --> 0:17:16.720 loved sound and graphics. Came out in nineteen eighty five, 0:17:16.760 --> 0:17:19.240 and people who bought an Amiga, they loved it. The 0:17:19.280 --> 0:17:21.240 games that came out for the Amiga seemed to be 0:17:21.320 --> 0:17:24.680 world's ahead of the games you could play on IBM 0:17:24.720 --> 0:17:29.200 clones or on Apple computers. But despite this, the computer 0:17:29.280 --> 0:17:32.640 itself in sales was a distant third place behind IBM 0:17:32.640 --> 0:17:36.040 clones and Apple computers, especially when it came to software. 0:17:36.440 --> 0:17:40.920 Commodore would eventually have to declare insolvency on April twenty nine, 0:17:41.080 --> 0:17:45.040 nineteen nine four, and a German company called s Com 0:17:45.040 --> 0:17:48.399 swooped in and acquired the Amiga assets, and for a 0:17:48.440 --> 0:17:50.840 brief time it looked like there was going to be 0:17:50.880 --> 0:17:52.960 a new Amiga machine that was going to come out 0:17:53.000 --> 0:17:57.600 in nineteen and while the specs weren't particularly mind blowing, 0:17:57.640 --> 0:18:00.680 the case was pretty darn cool, and this was called 0:18:00.720 --> 0:18:05.760 the Amiga Walker. The Walker is a little tricky to describe. Physically, 0:18:06.440 --> 0:18:10.200 the case stood on four little feet, so it didn't 0:18:10.240 --> 0:18:12.480 sit flat against the ground. It actually had these four 0:18:12.560 --> 0:18:16.080 little peg feet. It was a squat rounded tower design, 0:18:16.119 --> 0:18:18.000 and some people said it looked kind of like Darth 0:18:18.080 --> 0:18:21.439 Vader's helmet. It was a forty Mega Hurts machine with 0:18:21.440 --> 0:18:25.240 a sixty eight e C zero three zero processor for Motorola, 0:18:25.640 --> 0:18:29.959 so it was not sporting the hardiest of processors at 0:18:30.000 --> 0:18:31.800 that time. The specs would have made it a pretty 0:18:31.800 --> 0:18:35.440 decent computer maybe in the early nineties, but by nine 0:18:35.880 --> 0:18:37.520 when it was going to come out, it would have 0:18:37.560 --> 0:18:41.080 already have been obsolete compared to the hardware on other machines. 0:18:41.720 --> 0:18:45.280 As it turns out, it never did hit store shelves. 0:18:45.280 --> 0:18:48.439 It never emerged from the vapor, and one day I'm 0:18:48.440 --> 0:18:50.600 going to have to do a full series on Amiga 0:18:50.720 --> 0:18:53.600 to talk about the history and evolution of that company 0:18:53.600 --> 0:18:55.200 in more detail. I've talked about it a couple of 0:18:55.240 --> 0:18:58.080 times in the past, but never in as much detail 0:18:58.200 --> 0:19:02.840 as the subject warrants, because it's a fascinating story. Transitioning 0:19:02.920 --> 0:19:07.000 over to film, let me talk about Silicon Film and 0:19:07.040 --> 0:19:10.119 the e F S one product, because this was another 0:19:10.160 --> 0:19:15.920 really interesting idea that did not quite materialize. So the company, 0:19:16.600 --> 0:19:22.199 which was originally called a Magic, announced in that it 0:19:22.320 --> 0:19:24.720 was working on a device that you could insert into 0:19:24.760 --> 0:19:28.400 a normal thirty five millimeter film camera and turn your 0:19:28.400 --> 0:19:31.359 film camera into a digital camera. This was at a 0:19:31.400 --> 0:19:35.040 time when digital cameras were still pretty expensive, especially a 0:19:35.080 --> 0:19:38.320 digital s l R, and it would allow photographers who 0:19:38.359 --> 0:19:41.639 had invested hundreds or thousands of dollars in their film 0:19:41.720 --> 0:19:44.920 cameras and their lenses to take advantage of that hardware 0:19:44.920 --> 0:19:47.399 while switching to the digital side of things. At least 0:19:47.720 --> 0:19:50.919 the concepts seemed to say as much. The initial claim 0:19:50.960 --> 0:19:54.040 was that the company's first product, the electronic film system 0:19:54.160 --> 0:19:57.320 unit called e F S one, would fit into any 0:19:57.440 --> 0:20:00.480 thirty five millimeter camera and it would call us less 0:20:00.480 --> 0:20:03.800 than a thousand dollars. The specs revealed the sensor would 0:20:03.840 --> 0:20:06.240 not be able to take full advantage of a film 0:20:06.280 --> 0:20:09.280 cameras field of view. It would only capture about thirty 0:20:09.359 --> 0:20:13.240 five percent of the full frame yikes, less than half. 0:20:13.600 --> 0:20:16.800 It had a one point three megapixel s MOSS censor, 0:20:17.320 --> 0:20:21.200 so not terribly high resolution, and enough memory to hold 0:20:21.240 --> 0:20:24.280 two dozen images at twelve eighty by ten twenty four 0:20:24.359 --> 0:20:29.000 resolution in uncompressed format. So it wasn't exactly a killer 0:20:29.000 --> 0:20:31.760 set of specifications, but still it was an interesting idea 0:20:31.800 --> 0:20:35.720 for a product. The problem was that years went by 0:20:35.800 --> 0:20:37.679 and the company had nothing to show off for it. 0:20:38.119 --> 0:20:41.240 Remember they made the announcement in and it wasn't until 0:20:41.280 --> 0:20:44.840 two thousand one, three years after that initial announcement, that 0:20:44.960 --> 0:20:48.560 representatives attended the p m A show and demonstrated the 0:20:48.560 --> 0:20:51.800 e F S one. The following September, the company had 0:20:51.840 --> 0:20:55.440 to stop operations when a majority stakeholder pulled funding due 0:20:55.520 --> 0:20:59.639 to issues The company was facing with European environmental standards agencies. 0:21:00.160 --> 0:21:02.520 As it turned out, the e F S one was 0:21:02.640 --> 0:21:06.720 never capable of working with any thirty five millimeter camera. 0:21:06.840 --> 0:21:09.840 It only worked with about half a dozen Cannon or 0:21:09.920 --> 0:21:13.760 Nikon cameras, and then it was not compatible with the others. 0:21:13.760 --> 0:21:16.800 But the company had hopes of making other systems that 0:21:16.880 --> 0:21:20.600 would have increased compatibility. It just never was to be. 0:21:20.960 --> 0:21:24.200 In the meantime, digital SLR cameras have become more attainable, 0:21:24.480 --> 0:21:27.360 and that largely negated the market for a digital adapter 0:21:27.600 --> 0:21:30.520 incapable of taking full advantage of a camera's features. So, 0:21:31.680 --> 0:21:34.240 in other words, they took too long to bring their 0:21:34.280 --> 0:21:37.400 their device to market. They had announced it and they 0:21:37.440 --> 0:21:41.080 got some interest early on, but by the time they 0:21:41.240 --> 0:21:43.479 were getting ready to have something to come to market, 0:21:43.840 --> 0:21:47.600 the the alternatives were more attractive and easier to get. 0:21:47.920 --> 0:21:51.480 So bad timing. One gadget I do have to talk 0:21:51.480 --> 0:21:54.600 about was supposed to come out from Polaroid several years ago, 0:21:55.080 --> 0:21:57.160 and I'll need to do a full episode about Polaroid 0:21:57.200 --> 0:22:00.239 at some point because that's another fascinating company story. Let 0:22:00.240 --> 0:22:03.640 me give you the super short version of this particular tale. 0:22:03.840 --> 0:22:06.679 In two thousand eleven, Polaroid was trying to mount a 0:22:06.800 --> 0:22:11.359 late innings comeback. The company had been in pretty rough 0:22:11.400 --> 0:22:15.320 shape twice over the last decade or so. But to 0:22:15.800 --> 0:22:18.560 understand where they came from. In nineteen thirty two, Edwin 0:22:18.640 --> 0:22:22.480 Herbert Land, who was the inventor of instant photography, partnered 0:22:22.480 --> 0:22:25.000 with a guy named George Wheelwright to create the Land 0:22:25.040 --> 0:22:29.520 Wheelwright Laboratories, and in nineteen thirty seven that company would 0:22:29.600 --> 0:22:32.840 become Polaroid, and for decades the company was known as 0:22:32.880 --> 0:22:36.200 an innovator and popularized photography. It was the it was 0:22:36.240 --> 0:22:39.760