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Vintage Collection of Tech Failures
StormDriver writes "For every good design there are a dozen failed concepts. Nothing illustrates that better than a great online vintage gadget collection, published yesterday by the Microsoft Research team. The collection is a brainchild of Bill Buxton, one of the principal Microsoft researchers, a guy who's been through 30 years of continuous tech design. Awarded with three honorary doctorates and several professional awards, Bill also likes to gather things – the vintage, geeky kind of things, to be precise. Over the years, he has gathered an impressive collection of prototypes, probably the best I have seen online."
I’m actually surprised stuff like the Seiko Data-2000 (http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/bibuxton/buxtoncollection/detail.aspx?id=235) hasn’t come back! People could twitter even more effectively if they didn’t even have to pull the phone out of their pocket! Facebook status could be kept to near real time!
All kidding aside, this was kind of one of my geek fantasies having a house that you could control with something like this. I envisioned myself walking around my house tapping out commands.
I used to have a lot of interest in home automation, until the sad reality that beyond lights, temperature, and the coffee pot there really isn’t much else in a home that makes sense to automate beyond for the novelty of it.
On this topic, I would note that tech can fail not just because the implementation is poor, but because the idea is cooler than the practical application. The same can be said about voice recognition and virtual reality. The idea of barking orders to your computer or working on a “virtual desk” shuffling “virtual papers” around in 3D space sounds awesome but outside of a few niches, this approach just didn’t work.
A really interesting 5 part series to watch is “The Machine That Changed the World”. Aside from being a very good history of computers (first 3 hours/episodes.. and not those new fangled 40 minute hours but full 1 hour hours!), it’s very fascinating to see how some very intelligent people thought we would be using computers now based on some fairly sound thinking. It’s a nice mind exercise to try and figure out why they were wrong (or whether they are right and we are just the pre-cursory naysayers).
Microsoft Skype
Look at the collection and then try and convince me that our slow rate of progress is due to a lack of technology rather than a lack of imagination.
What the hell does that even mean? Slow rate of progress? Lack of imagination? I'm sure it was beautiful in his head but that thought didn't cross out into the real world all that intact.
You know, that music "decision" engine ?
For every good design there are a dozen failed concepts
We're at Windows 7. Only 5 more to go!
Have gnu, will travel.
Gah! I've been wanting one of these for a long time. Actually, I can't figure out why a mouse beat out something like this: I mean, schools dropping handwriting is stupid, but that being a reason for this being a failure is equally stupid.
Pop quiz: how many here have had to create an electronic signature with a mouse? Or have signed documents, and then sent the jpg of the signed doc?
Or, for that matter, wanted to draw or trace something in, say, Gimp?
mark
Why do I sense a large number of Slashdot users hitting up eBay and Craigslist looking for number 5?
Vintage collection? Yes.
All failures? Nope.
And I'm not surprised I own several of 'em...
It says nothing about being a list of tech failures.
It's got a goddamn etch-a-sketch for fuck's sake..
It's just a bunch of neat devices, most of which failed because most new ideas do fail. I don't think the list is selected for failure.
These are not tech failures. Many items were successful and/or profoundly influential.
RTFA.
It's not a definitive list of tech failures without the ::cue::cat ! That changed everything! We never browsed the web the same again!
:CRQ "audible URL" technology that was going to allow us to directly link tv advertisements for fine products to the web?
Hey, whatever happened to their
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Space Nuttery? Orbital colonies, bungalows on Mars, manufacturing on asteroids? There are some colossal failures for you!
The /. headline is wrong - the iPod is on the list.
The frogpad was not a failure. I work for a not for profit serving the disabled and we used FrogPads all the time. It was insanely useful for those with limited hand movement. It sucked when they stopped making them.
CDE open sourced! https://sourceforge.net/projects/cdesktopenv/
"Often statistics are used as a drunken man uses lampposts -- for support rather than illumination."
That's precisely how statistics are generally meant to be used. While exploratory statistics have their place--an important place--too many people use statistics designed to confirm or reject hypotheses for exploration, generally with the result of spurious findings.
Why is this labeled "Vintage Collection of Tech Failures"
From TFA: "Over the past 30 years, designer, writer, and researcher Bill Buxton has been collecting. Explore his collection of input and interactive devices that he found interesting, useful, or important in the history of pen computing, pointing devices, and touch technologies."
Silverlight
Generally, it is the first thing that comes to mind when I hear "tech failure". And being as everything that was new and exciting the last time this site worked properly is now "vintage" I think that label applies here just fine as well.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Not sure how you could categorize an Etch-A-Sketch as a failure. Thousands if not millions of these things had to have been sold since 1960
Oddly enough, an exhibit called FAIL -- a display of historic computers that underwhelmed -- won best-of-show at the Vintage Computer Festival East in 2009. BTW this year's VCF East happens to be this weekend! It's in Wall, NJ for any /.ers who want to see a whole exhibit hall of this stuff. http://www.vintage.org/2011/east
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Requested URL: /en-us/um/people/bibuxton/buxtoncollection/browse.aspx
Gee the site it's self uses a failed technology - Silverlight.... enough said
Pivotview is a crappy way to view that site.
Left off some stuff:
- Amiga mouse (right side) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Amiga500_system.jpg
- C=64 mouse: http://www.virtualsky.net/iadoremyc64/gallery/1351_mouse.jpg
- Atari joystick http://library.thinkquest.org/06aug/01856/media/AtariJoystick.jpg
- Epyx joystick http://mimg.ugo.com/201103/4/5/7/183754/epyx.jpg
- Commodore joystick http://www.itwissen.info/bilder/commodore-joystick.png
- Atari Trakball http://a10.idata.over-blog.com/400x533/1/27/40/16/Joypads-divers/2600-trak-ball.jpg
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
LED Calculator watch. From 1977. Waterproof to 10 meters, and Magnetic-Field-Proof to 60 Gauss.
Sometimes I feel we're working backwards here.
The handeykey Twiddler is still in production and still used by many. It's a godsend to people with disabilities.
Frnaklin ebookman worked great for when it was viable. It's failure was that publishers were afraid of ebooks. it had good readability unti lthe Rex came about with a far better screen. Both were ahead of their time and only "failed" because of publishers.
A lot of that stuff were far from failures. they were designed for a specific task. the 3d mousing devices are STILL used to this day in high end 3d CAD.
I think the submitter needs to understand what "failed" means.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Amazon Kindle a failure? There is a difference between vintage prototypes, and failures...
Why is the HTML broken? You click on a picture or the caption beneath it, and it just shows the name of the thing you typed at the top of the screen, and pictures of all of the rest of the stuff. I suppose they put 50 hours into the sliverblight portion of the page, and 5 minutes on the HTML. Well silverblight is proprietary and crap, and coincidentally, so is their HTML. Also, based on what I've seen, the page isn't really that interesting. Move on.
Where is Microsoft Bob?
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The resource cannot be found.
I guess the list itself is a tech failure, and thus belongs on this list?
FULL INCURSION COMPLETE.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Anyone else look at the first page and think that "Experience in PivotViewer" was the first example of tech failures? I was looking all over the page for a "page 2" or "next" link.
I thought that the "vintage" moniker only applied to items at least twenty years old. And failures? Many of these devices I recall using in school, buying, stealing from electronics store/manufacturers dumpsters..I was expecting more novelty than the "green-eye mouse" or force-feedback.
(oh yeah, now haptic feedback is all the rage)
for a Microsoft Research page, there's a notable dearth of examples of Microsoft hardware.
Draw your own conclusions from that...
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Strange how the apple newton and the iphone1 were not mentioned in the PDA section. Oh, it's a microsoft site.
iPod Touch. Really a failure? It is still being sold and is what on v3? Must be doing alright. Where it fails in my opinion is price/performance. If I'm going to carry around something the size of a smart phone I might as well have a smartphone. If I don't want to by and iPhone because I already have a smartphone do I really want to be carrying around 2 smartphones? At the other end of the scale you have something the size of a smartphone that isn't and then a say cheapo candy bar phone. All the inconvenience of a smartphone with less of the functionality + still need a phone. Anyways the product doesn't work for me but I think their must be a group of people that it works for (say parents giving it to kids that don't want to shell out the money for an expensive smartphone data plan or buy their kids a second device to play games on.
I'd imagine a high percentage of the collection did fail in the marketplace, simply because there's no point adding a normal PC mouse, for example, to a collection. But neither is this a random collection of crappy failed products, which would be endless and not very valuable.
I have one of the products, a wireless keyboard/trackpad, which is perfect for controlling a computer connected to a TV - which is very useful now that "TVs" are 1080p digital displays.
I don't know if there is some issue on my end of the line. But, gosh, these pages take forever to load and it keeps thrusting silverlight on your face. If you cant handle Firefox + NoScript, I am out of here. On second thoughts, add that web page to your collection failed gadgets.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
That Timex Datalink watch had an optical sensor. You download data to the watch by holding it in front of the CRT monitor. The software "blinks" and outputs bars on the screen, that is read by the watch to store phone numbers and reminders. It was a microsoft brandname watch with the Microsoft logo. I used it for some 12 years before it conked out. Came with a huge battery that lasted all 12 years. Everytime someone accused me of being biased against Microsoft, I used to show them my watch. "If I am biased, why would I wear Microsoft brand name on my wrist 24/7?". Curiously absent from this list.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
You know, the MS split keyboard where they managed to fuxx0r the location of the '6' key, putting it where your grandma's touch-typing mentor used to expect it.
Since a long time most touch-typer are taught to use their right hand to hit the '6' (actually that "school of thoughts" did already exist back when your grandma's touch-typing mentor was insisting on using the left hand to hit the '6').
I'm not mentioning the pathetically lame rubber-dome.
There are still astroturfing paid M$ fanbois touting this natural sh!te as the greatest keyboard ever (cough *Cherry MX switches, cough buckling spring, cough Topre, cough cough cough...).
Now if you honestly thought that keyboard was good it's time to google a bit on keyboard technology.
Seriously, the day MS produces something that won't suck, it's going to be a vacuum cleaner.
First, neither link says anything about failures. The first does talk about concepts that "didn't catch on", but that's not necessarily a failure. And the article is only using items from the collection as examples. The collection itself is just that, a collection of gadgets. Nothing on the site says that this is a collection of failures. In fact it says quite the opposite.
Over the past 30 years, designer, writer, and researcher Bill Buxton has been collecting. Explore his collection of input and interactive devices that he found interesting, useful, or important in the history of pen computing, pointing devices, and touch technologies.
The implication that this site is a list of failures is plain wrong.
Seriously, I wouldn't consider the Ranger to not be "pocket-able", it is only slightly larger than the Tinker http://www.swissarmy.com/MultiTools/Pages/Product.aspx?category=doityourself&product=53101 which is what I do carry daily. Admittedly I also have the classic on my key chain as a backup, guess that makes me the Guy Who Always Has Two Knives, and I keep a Swisschamp http://www.swissarmy.com/MultiTools/Pages/Product.aspx?category=originalswissarmyknives&product=53501& in my back pack..... Three, Three Knives! Ha Ha ha.
If the point of the post is to showcase "PivotViewer," I am certainly unimpressed. After taking a long time to load, it presents me with a lot of baffling animated bling that fails to help me understand what he's getting at.
The original Mac "zoomrects" helped you understand intuitively that the window was another view of the same entity as the icon. A good example of using animation to clarify a UI abstraction. The little files with wings flying from folder to folder when you copy files in Windows is silly--because the concept doesn't need graphic illustration--but at least the animation conveys some meaningful semantic content.
I don't know what on earth the flying icons in PivotViewer are supposed to be showing, other than "it's animated--because we can."
I don't understand what he's getting at when I browse in HTML, either.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Anyone who has actually gone to the site might notice that many of the items there aren't failures, unless you consider the Ipod G1, G2, G3 and Touch to be failures. The Palm Pilot a failure? The IBM Trackpoint a failure? I think not. Most of the mice in the mouse section, not failures. Etch-a-sketch? One of the most successful toys ever, a technical failure? Swiss Army knives, a failure?
Support SETI@home
Well, I guess it didn't really FAIL, it was very cool and effective. However, it failed in the log haul but gave a peek into the future of personal video recording with small and convenient tapes, along with a small and lightweight camera. Quality was terrible, and the batteries lasted for crap. Oh well, we didn't have the tech we do now. I thought it was really awesome having one, even when I was probably 8-9 and got it at a yard sale. I always wanted the monitor setup, but no stores around here sold them (not that I could convince anyone in my family to shell out that kind of bread). Inspiring and interesting for a little kid to have something like that to play with, could open the world of cinematography or even photography to them. Now, we have the Flip...well, had.
Actually, I can't figure out why a mouse beat out something like this: I mean, schools dropping handwriting is stupid, but that being a reason for this being a failure is equally stupid.
Mice are cheaper to make and work very well as a pointing device. A pen serves both as a pointing device and data input device, but does neither exceptionally well for many uses. A pen/styles was designed for a different technology (paper) which works very well but is not (usually) better as a pointing device for a computer, nor is it (usually) better for (non-math) data entry than a keyboard. Computers use two devices which are individually better at certain tasks than a pen/stylus when the interface is designed for them. A pen centric interface could be designed but the economics of such a device remain unproven.
That said, I'd love to see some well designed smart pens that aren't A) huge, B) require special paper, C) work with tablet like the iPad. I think a device like the iPad would be ideal for students (and pretty useful in the professional world) if you could take notes on it with a pen/stylus. However no one has come up with a device optimized for that purpose. The Windows TabletPCs were not optimized for pen input and the current touchscreen tablets are designed for fingers. Both useful in their way but hard to take good notes in a physics class with them.
how many here have had to create an electronic signature with a mouse?
Why would I do that?
Or, for that matter, wanted to draw or trace something in, say, Gimp?
GIMP isn't designed for drawing. Sure you can do some crude drawing but it's not what it is for. There are plenty of applications which are meant for drawing if that is what you want to do.
I've had the white part of that Spectrum Ring Mouse thingy for a few years now. It was a pain trying to figure out what it was, as it only has "Spectrum" on it, and that that is a search nightmare.
Now i know what it is. Even got some pdf's for it.
woot!
still probably sit in the box it's in though...
Be seeing you...
I'm sorry... I just have to ask: Is the use of silverlight on a website showcasing failed technologies appropriate? Silverlight: Technology from a company we love to hate, created to solve a problem that had already been solved, and do it badly at that.
There are a couple of really nice uses for one of these,
As a bonus, they don't rape you on the paper- you can buy nice notebooks for a few bucks more than standard, or just print the PDF files they give you. The development kit for custom apps is free as well.
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
The Logitech Trackman was AWESOME! I used one for about 12 years as my main "pointing device".
I once was at a used computer hardware store, and saw the guy had one of these plugged into a working computer. I tried to buy it off him (so I could have a backup) but he wouldn't sell it.
--
tmegapscm
Motion sensor needed to be more sensitive. Or you needed to get a nice backlit keyboard.
I used to work in a place that had such lighting controls, but only in the rest rooms. On occasion while doing Number 2, I would be plunged into darkness. Had to wave my arm before starting on the cleanup phase.
hi this is mallesh anniversary