Unfortunately, the Revolutionary Gadgets of the 80's that Failed

An ambitious failed work that has become a legend of some kind.

In the 1980s - Giratu Neon, Mirror Ball, Dressy Hairstyle, Night Riders, a revolution in various technologies took place. In 1985, Nintendo forever changed the living room by a family computer, IBM, Apple, Commodore 64 attracted personal computers to home. Furthermore, due to the appearance of NFSNet and teenager hackers, the Internet of the earliest years could also look out.

However, if you have invested in various gadgets at Kickstarter you will understand, but in the shadow of rapid growth in the field of technology. the deaths and deaths of various deaths are built up. Some of them were invisible at the time of the prototype and there were not contents or it was too expensive and the failure was visible from the beginning. Besides, gadgets which remain as a warning from the past to those who try to challenge the format war, being pushed beaten up by the competitors to the corner of history, being forced into a corner of history, simply failed There are things.

Below are the seven major failed gadgets of the 1980s, never recognized the living beings revolutionary.

Sony Beta Movie - Video Recorder

As a synonym for failure, I think I've heard of the name " Betamax " that everyone lost to VHS. However, we can not call Betamax a mere failure. In the consumer market, we lost a lot, but because VHS prevailed in image quality it continued to be used in the professional world for SD recording. As for how much we won, Sony did not stop beta Max's cassette tape production until 2015 .

However, " Beta movies " is another story. A beta movie released in 1984 at 1,596 dollars is not a cassette tape deck hanging like a bag and carried around, it is a revolutionary so-called It is a product of the first generation of "camera recorder".

According to the June 1984 issue of Popular Science, it was possible to shoot for 3 hours (VHS was 30 minutes) with higher image quality than VHS, and it took 1 hour to charge. Also, the magazine evaluated "lack of hanging cable connecting VCR and camera". However, because there was no digital viewfinder, in order to check what I took, I brotherly took a camera of 5.5 pounds (about 2.5 kg) to the TV and had to connect it.

Price, weight, and lack not become a big hit in the cause of the fatal feature, Sony in 1987 after three years from the sale quietly the lineup of beta movie was abolition.

Capacitance Electronic Disc

In the 1950's, the idea of whether to record the video on the analog record was advocated. According to Atlas Obscura, two RCA engineers who were at the cutting edge of technology at the time moved to realization in 1964. In the New York magazine in 1980, RCA called this new format as their " ManhattanProject", and finally released Capacitance Electronic Disc (CED) in 1981 after 17 years of the development period. CED was one of the formats of video discs that appeared to break down the stronghold of VHS and Betamax at the time. The image quality of CED was relatively high, and since it was a disk, rewinding was not necessary either.

However, there was also a problem. Even the remote control seems like it, but the disc was huge. Also, the disc was protected by a large and heavy plastic cassette, which made it difficult to store. The disc inside was very delicate and sometimes rendered inoperable only by touching dusty air - cassette is necessary. Also, because it is vulnerable to repeated viewing, it seems that it was hard for families with children who want to see the same movie many times.

In addition, the shortcoming is the recordable time. Because I can only record for one hour on one side, I got up in the middle of the movie, turned the cassette up and had to change again.

The CED ended in failure, and only 500,000 players were sold by 1984, and RCA was obliged to stop producing the format. The long development period of 20 years was also a major blow to RCA and it was impossible to recover the cost of millions of dollars spent on developing CED and this failure was due to the acquisition of General Electric in 1986 and the dismantling of the company It became a big factor.

Atari Touch Tablet

From the late 1970s to the early 1980s, Atari was a big name. I paid a great success in the game, but I was investing in ambitious gadgets that I was not satisfied with. Several kinds released an 8-bit computer in 79 years, the 10 years from success, computer cool for peripheral devices has been developed.

Among them the of most cool was " Touch Tablet CX77 ". 1984 issue of InfoWorld According to the, using the Touch Tablet can draw a picture or a graphic, of similar such failure KoalaPad and at the same time in Atari solution to, was what was aimed at Wacom 80s. Speaking from a modern perspective, both tablets are lol. It was not easy to draw truly simple forms, save things you made to show to other people, or transfer them to other things.

Cx77 Touch Tablet and KoalaPad, too far ahead of time to be useful, quietly disappeared with the end of the 8 bit computer era and remained part of the memories to be said among 8 bit enthusiasts.

IMB PCJr

"In the history of personal computing (although it is still a shallow history), there are no items that have been anticipated, " IBM announced its first PC in 1982 in Computer Inc. I wrote it when I did. At that time IBM was the world's largest computer company responsible for all workstations in the offices around the world, but Apple, Atari, and Commodore did not make any domestic computers that had been sweeping.

So, rumors that IBM made personal computers just got rid of IBM stocks, and people curiously caught up the shop even though they were curious. So IBM actually launched an " inexpensive " home computer, IMB PCJr .

Unfortunately, when PCJr released the price of computers was the cheapest. It is a low price to think that the cheap version PCJr which almost does not come with peripheral equipment is $ 670 and the "Good" version is 1,270 dollars In some cases it was three times the price of other manufacturers at the time. Moreover, PCJr suffered also in terms of PR due to poor keyboard creation and bashing from tech journalism community. According to the place where Steven Levy Mr. wrote in Popular Computing, " this machine stench of death is yes." 

As these factors overlapped, PCJr experienced the first large moss in the world of home computers, and in 1985 IBM abandoned production of this baby PC.

Kodak Disc 4000

Not only RCA thought about putting something other than music on the disc. In 1982, Kodak launched several kinds of disc cameras including disc film and " Kodak Disc 4000 ". Unlike thick roll film, Kodak's system uses disc-like film like View-Master. There are 15 negatives on a disc and a magnetic strip that can store the settings of the camera, and since it is not wound like a roll film, it needs a heavy plate to make it flat for laying it out There was also the advantage that it was not.

Not only that, because of the characteristics of the disc, the camera itself could be made thinner and thinner, and there was no need for the lens to protrude. As a result, the disc camera looked best for the trip, but the quality of the photograph was not good because negatives were too small .

It is a discreet expression that is not good, in fact, it was rather terrible.

"I can take snapshots easily and quickly with this compact camera of the space age," Popular Photography wrote in 1982. However, at the same time, because the quality of the photograph declines due to the smallness of negatives, I explained that I may regret that I bought it.

It seems that the general public has agreed with it, and Kodak learns that people place importance on the quality of the photos rather than the smallness of the camera. In 1984, the flagship Kodak Disc 4000 was discontinued, and in 1988 all production of the disc camera series was stopped. The film itself continued to be produced until 1999 .

Macintosh Portable

Apple's first portable PC, " Macintosh Portable " has failed for a good reason to fail. But that was neither Apple's own problem, which was successful at that time in the Macintosh series nor the specification of the machine. Looking at Computerworld in 1989, Portable is the highest grade perfection and LCD is well-viewable and received a good evaluation .

The problem with Macintosh Portable is that the price of this 16 pound (about 7.3 kg) machine was from 6,500 dollars and that it will not work unless the battery is charged even though it is connected to the power supply It was.

In other words, it was neither cheap nor portable. Expensive and heavy, this PC to consume profusely to the electrical, consumer of mind although evaluation was higher from the critic not grasp, in 1991, two years after the aborted production.

Portable was the earliest of Apple 's' got such' gamble design. After overcoming the failure of Portable, Apple released a popular PowerBook, while releasing Newton shortly after stopping Portable. Newton was also as powerful as Portable, but it was a device that preempted too much ahead of time. But unlike Portable, it has driven Apple to the point just before bankruptcy.

Coleco Adam

Computer Coleco had been released in the 1980s, did what many great, only "Coleco Adam" is the exception was. Adam, which Popular Mechanics evaluated in 1984, should be a huge success, " How to design and sell home computers the most revolutionary concept". Because the price was cheap for the height of specs, it was attracting attention as an alternative to IMB PCJr. But Adam had big problems that Tech Media of the 1980s tended to miss .

This machine emitted an electromagnetic pulse every time it started up, but since it was in the 1980's, even a maker of recording media did not care about electromagnetic shielding as much as now. However, since the recording media at that time needed a magnet, when it came close to a refrigerator magnet or an electromagnetic pulse, the record disappeared.

In other words, every time Adam was started, there was a possibility that the record of the nearby device disappeared. Of course, this became a problem, Coleco stopped selling Adam in 1985, not just a year and a half.

Seiko UC-2000

It is neither Apple nor Google nor Pebble that has the title of the world's first list watch computer. However, although the first products are overwhelmingly inferior to the products of those companies.

The performance is " Seiko UC - 2000 ", it is high performance even if it is seen by the current standard. All device itself will not fall in the watch, but whether connecting with comfortable bad list keyboard, by placing a huge desktop dock simple document or writing, computer or use as, a very basic level of command the It can be done with a very small screen.

Although it was a considerably cheap amount (230 dollars) on the current standard, it looks pretty clumsy. Due to its appearance, Seiko was quite hesitant to sell this watch in the US.

Popular Science in 1985 was especially criticized, "Although it is an interesting toy in Clever, UC-2000 is inferior to PC as a PC in performance compared with a $ 100 portable computer. It's tremendously slow and keyboard handling I will overwhelm PCJr at that time. "

When ideas at the time of the technology have not kept pace. The idea itself is still alive. I think that it is because of these failures that there were technology at the moment, not as a joke 's story, but maybe you want to remember with respect .

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