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221 Comments
- Nezzari, on 10/12/2007, -14/+134Stole it from you? What are you, 9?
- armbar, on 10/12/2007, -2/+81No one really uses RealPlayer. RealPlayer uses you.
Edit: And not just in Soviet Russia... - andymullins, on 10/12/2007, -4/+711. AOL
2. RealPlayer
3. Syncronys SoftRAM
4. Microsoft Windows Millennium
5. Sony BMG Music CDs
6. Disney The Lion King CD-ROM
7. Microsoft Bob
8. Microsoft Internet Explorer 6
9. Pressplay and MusicNet
10. Ashton-Tate dBASE IV
11. Priceline Groceries and Gas
12. PointCast Network
13. IBM PCjr.
14. Gateway 2000 10th Anniversary PC
15. Iomega Zip Drive
16. Comet Systems Comet Cursor
17. Apple Macintosh Portable
18. IBM Deskstar 75GXP
19. OQO Model 1
20. DigitalConvergence CueCat
21. Eyetop Wearable DVD Player
22. Apple Pippin @World
23. Free PCs
24. DigiScents iSmell
25. Sharp RD3D Notebook - niqhil, on 10/12/2007, -10/+71Always good to see IE somewhere on list.
- Kwisatz, on 10/12/2007, -5/+54What? No Virtual Boy? Nothing says tech fun like a splitting headache!
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+25Have you ever used real player?
- GrendelT, on 10/12/2007, -13/+35No digg. Some of the items on here, while they suck in retrospect, they were awesome when they came out, but you can't judge the past based on today's terms. The impact of some of these spawned new products and ideas.
I disagree with some of their inclusions to the "Worst Tech of all time". Especially the items listed in the (dis)honorable mention category. True, some of the products sucked, but I can think of worse offerings.
What they got wrong:
- AOL "was" cool before there were many dialup ISPs... most of you have been AOL users at one point or another.
- Real "was" cool before they started hi-jacking the system and changing codecs nightly.
- The IBM 75GXP was an awesome hard drive for some. (I still have mine) It never cratered on me...
- The Timex Datalink watch was awesome. Period.
- The Newton was cool before Palm.
- Motorola Rokr. Was there a better alternative at the time?
Some products were cool, but their exection was poor. In this category:
- 3Com Audrey it does have broadband support, you need a USB network adapter. I have one here.
- PointCast had a great concept. Poor management and marketing.
- CueCat sucked in reality. The plan was awesome, and they're a helluva lot of fun to play with now! (thanks eBay!) - Dog_Paddle, on 10/12/2007, -1/+22WHERE IS BONZAI BUDDY?
- mzkw, on 10/12/2007, -2/+21Just use the "Printer Friendly Version":
http://www.pcworld.com/resource/printable/article/0,aid,125772,00.asp - SoccerBoy, on 10/12/2007, -4/+22Best part is that AOL is #1, right where that POS should be...
- jdoohen, on 10/12/2007, -2/+19How dare you...
The power glove defined a generation! - chesterjosiah, on 10/12/2007, -6/+201. America Online (1989-2006)
2. RealNetworks RealPlayer (1999)
3. Syncronys SoftRAM (1995)
4. Microsoft Windows Millennium (2000)
5. Sony BMG Music CDs (2005)
6. Disney The Lion King CD-ROM (1994)
7. Microsoft Bob (1995)
8. Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 (2001)
9. Pressplay and Musicnet (2002)
10. dBASE IV (1988)
11. Priceline Groceries and Gas (2000)
12. PointCast (1996)
13. IBM PCjr. (1984)
14. Gateway 2000 10th Anniversary PC (1995)
15. Iomega Zip Drive (1998)
16. Comet Cursor (1997)
17. Apple Macintosh Portable (1989)
18. IBM Deskstar 75GXP (2000)
19. OQO Model 1 (2004)
20. CueCat (2000)
21. Eyetop Wearable DVD Player (2004)
22. Apple Pippin @World (1996)
23. Free PCs (1999)
24. DigiScents iSmell (2001)
25. Sharp RD3D Notebook (2004) - SuperChicken, on 10/12/2007, -8/+22RTFA...the last page had them all listed..geez
- Greyarea, on 10/12/2007, -3/+16Rea[BUFFERING]l Play[BUFFERING]er - well, no surprises there I suppose.
dBASE IV ! Oh, GODS I hated that! Words alone are not sufficient to describe why v1.0 of that sucked so badly - I'd have to resort to some sort of freeform improvisational dance or something.
v1.0 had a horrible, horrible bug whereby indexes wouldn't update properly in a networked environment. I nearly killed the Aston Tate guys I met at a trade stand when they said "Oh, yeah, it does that." - dclowd9901, on 10/12/2007, -3/+16It's a very scathing article, and definitely fun to read. It's nice to know that PC World is still run by geeks like us. I agreed with just about every item on that list. You should make some time later to go through it.
- killrbeez, on 10/12/2007, -2/+14you can use the 'real alternative' player
http://www.free-codecs.com/download/Real_Alternative.htm - dobesov, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12AOL did not bring the net to the masses... It ran on its own network seperate from the internet and did everything possible to try and kill the internet and convince everyone to connect to AOL. Finally it gave up and became an internet provider, carrying its clueless users over to the internet. Companies like mind spring were responsible for bringing internet to the masses.
- millixaw, on 10/12/2007, -9/+19From the article: "Circuit City DiVX DVDs (1998): Remember the disposable DVD? Circuit City's attempt at starting its own pay-per-view movie service entailed proprietary set-top players and disposable DiVX movie discs that expired 48 hours after you started watching them. The player required a phone line so it could check whether you had permission to watch. But as it turned out, consumers preferred their DVDs without strings, and Circuit City ended up dropping $114 million on its little experiment."
They got a word for these discs now: Blu-Ray - dubski, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11"real player alternative" is the way to go!
- millixaw, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10I love the Power Glove. It's so bad.
- armbar, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9Seriously. I remember playing tennis (or something slightly resembling tennis) on a demo VirtualBoy at the store when I was 7 or 8. I almost fell off the stand trying to step down.
They do have the RD3D notebook on the list, for similar effect. - therernospoons, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9They forgot banner ads and popups!
- ekkalvia, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8Of all-time? The oldest product is from 1989. Is that when "tech" was invented?
I think that the vibratory chair (circa 1900) should've made it on the list.
http://www.mtn.org/quack/devices/k-chair.htm - OBKenobi, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9PC World just earned a few respect points with this article. I'm genuinely impressed. Someone in the mainstream media speaks out against these crap ass corporations and products, you don't see this too often. Too bad they would never say anything like this when these products first came out. I know back when AOL was announced, everyone with any sense knew it was going to lead to the retardation of the internet, yet all these mags kissed its ass!
The Ageia PhysX should also be on the list. For being a $300 "physics accelerator" that makes games run SLOWER!
The P4 Prescott should be up there somewhere too. For being hardly better than a regular P4 while using up an extra 30w. - jdoohen, on 10/12/2007, -14/+22America Online (1989-2006)
RealNetworks RealPlayer (1999)
Syncronys SoftRAM (1995)
Microsoft Windows Millennium (2000)
Sony BMG Music CDs (2005)
Disney The Lion King CD-ROM (1994)
Microsoft Bob (1995)
Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 (2001)
Pressplay and Musicnet (2002)
dBASE IV (1988)
Priceline Groceries and Gas (2000)
PointCast (1996)
IBM PCjr. (1984)
Gateway 2000 10th Anniversary PC (1995)
Iomega Zip Drive (1998)
Comet Cursor (1997)
Apple Macintosh Portable (1989)
IBM Deskstar 75GXP (2000)
OQO Model 1 (2004)
CueCat (2000)
Eyetop Wearable DVD Player (2004)
Apple Pippin @World (1996)
Free PCs (1999)
DigiScents iSmell (2001)
Sharp RD3D Notebook (2004) - fingiecrookie, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Surely the complete Philips CD-i player series should be on that list?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CD-i - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Yeah, seriously. The Timex Data Link Watch was totally awesome. There's no way that deserves to be on this list.
- macfanboi, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10HA!
(Dis)Honorable Mention
Apple Newton MessagePad (1994)
Apple Puck Mouse (1998)
Apple Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh (1997) - Lumiras, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7just because you don't like these products doesn't mean that they were terrible for everyone
- SoccerBoy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7RealPlayer is really bad, but I have to admit, picking what order to put these is had to be hard... just think about it this way:
Take 25 piles of *****... then order them in order of the worst smelling... good luck! - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8I now know who you are and where you live.
- XSforMe, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9"Never had a problem with RealPlayer"
At this point I prefer to miss out on whichever content is available only using real player than having to install their monstruous software. Realalternative is out there, but it is buggy and will not always work. Yes, it is THAT bad. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7The internet was boooming altogether. Sure AOL was a part of that, but if you remember correctly at the time, there were tons of ISPs out there and they all fell. Why? B/c of AOL's ability to ***** and market. Not b/c of anything technical, pure marketing ability. That's it.
The web would've boomed without them, and you know what? We'd have some smarter users too rather than a company who dumbed people down for so long and held their hands like they were children. - GTAcrimelord, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5AOL--"it has never overcome the stigma of being the online service for people who don't know any better."
That just made my day. Maybe I should show this to my "technologically-retarded" co-worker who still, to this day, believes that AOL is a decent and reliable ISP.
+Digg - mailman-zero, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5To Nintendo's credit, the Power Glove was a Mattel product.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5AOL was great for punters and progs, though...
- scottevans, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I had a Zip 250 and that thing was the biggest POS I ever owned. Had it replaced under warranty twice because of random drive failures. The last one failed when it was just out of warranty. Three drive failures in 13 months for me. The kicker to it all was that when the drive would fail, your data on the disk that was being read from would be trashed, as well. It would ***** the data so badly that there was no way to ever recover it. I bet Iomega settled many a lawsuit over those damn things.
- jull1234, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5its funny, this list, when I turn my head in a 180 degree arc.
1. My Computer with ATI radeon 9600
2. My Computer with Audigy sound card
3. My Computer with 1 IE window open
4. Sony CD Walkman
5. Sony Trinitron TV
6. iTunes playing some tunes on my computer
I even bought a computer for the grandma from the gateway store!
I actually haven't had issues with these (except IE, I do hate IE). - Urusai, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5"Furby, sing me a song!"
-- "Doo?"
"Furby, SING ME A SONG!"
-- "Doo?"
"FURBY, SING ME A FREAKING SONG YOU DUMB *$(&*$#!!"
-- "Wha?" - Trjn, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5And in a happy twist of fate, the PC World No 1 gadget in the last 50 years. . . the Sony walkman.
Look for yourself: http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,123950,pg,1,00.asp
Although there are a few things on that list that I don't agree with, the Sony PS2 may be a great console, but higher than the Gameboy?
If you didn't grow up playing Tetris on an oversized chunk of plastic that accommodated 4 AA batteries, you were missing out.
There were a few others that I didn't really agree with, but that was the biggest standout.
As for this actual list, the Zip drive is on bother the worst gadgets and best gadgets list. Not too sure how that one works. - Kitsune818, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7ZIP drives were great, if you kept everything on two zip disks just in case the first one self destructed, which happened to me about three times on different drives. The nice part was that they would not only fail, but in such a way that it pretty much erased your data while doing it.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6... Never used myspace, never used aol. . . never will.
- Nighthawke, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Zip drives were fine, until the heads shredded themselves, causing the click of death. The heads rode on the media directly, and when those wore off, the arms shredded the mylar disc. Each time the drive would click, it would be banging it's arm from stop to stop (Commodore 1541 owners will remember the famous chatter their drives did.) hence shredded media, hence loss of data, et al.
- gcpeart, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7NeXT wasn't a failure, NeXT is OSX. At least that is what I have been told by one of the original leads. He also said its a bit embarrassing to put the name of your company into the name of your classes, especially after you have been bought out.
- _skin_, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Priceline is number 11... I used the gas thing from priceline all the time. That sucked when it was dropped.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4VRML- Seriously, who was going to want to walk through a artificial town square at 14.4K?
Virtual Reality - Never lived up to the hype. We have the ability today to do it right, just no one is up to it.
OS 8 and 9 - Never had the feel of System 7 and they were buggy as all get out.
Email Appliances - Need I say more? - tnwake, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I know tons of IT people who still program in Java at some very large companies.
As for XM/Sirius.. there is no reason at all to believe it's dying. I've had XM for a couple of years and the quality is much better than FM! Have you even heard satellite radio before?! I'm gladly paying my $12/month to have:
- commercial free music
- more choices so I don't hear the same song 800 times a day
- stations that don't exist for me on FM (comedy, blues, jazz techno/dance, etc.)
- MLB and NHL games
- all major news stations
- etc.
IMHO it's a bargain and I don't know many people here who don't have either XM or Sirius. - diggerphelps, on 10/12/2007, -0/+426. Popup ads
- imightbewrong, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4they really "stick it to the man"!! aol and realplayer suck so much its about time someone like PCworld called em out for it
- commiecat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4@Pile - I don't think AOL was written nearly as well as you think. My fondest memory of early AOL was using AOHell to randomly generate CC#s to allow access onto AOL. It was also during a time when you could actually flood somebody's MODEM to kick them offline - either with HTML codes or just sending a bunch of carriage returns.
My old comm programs for BBSing were much more stable - Telix, Telemate, ProComm Plus and ever SirDoom from DoomII. -
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