The 25 Worst Tech Products of All Time (CONFESS!!!! Which did you own?)

[LynneSin]

http://www.pcworld.com/article/125772-8/the_25_worst_tech_products_of_all_time.html

The Complete List of Losers
1.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)

I will confess to using AOL, IE6 (that's the reason I don't use IE anymore), PointCast, Comet Cursor and I bought a computer with Windows ME on it. And I'm sure I had some Sony CDs. Oh I tried that Priceline service - it sucked.

What have you suffered thru and what's missing on the list.

[MorningGlow]

1. Weeee weeee weeee weeee

AOL was my first intertubes connection. :blush:

We used Iomega zip drives at work in '98 and '99. Tapes. How quaint.

[TK421]

7. same here....now I have a feeling as to what I have missed

[Deep13]

2. Still have a Zip drive. nt

[Lucinda]

18. Me too.

[cemaphonic]

31. Yeah, they weren't bad at all

The market just quickly outgrew the niche that they filled.

[RebelOne]

3. Yes, I had AOL until a couple of years ago

and it was dial-up. I was tired of waiting and waiting for sites to load, so I am on cable now.

[JCMach1]

4. I still have a cue cat packed away somewhere and a zip drive...

don't know how they made the list... actually pretty good solution for the time.

[jmowreader]

20. It was the Click of Death that got the Zip drive on the list

I don't know...in the days when CD-R was exotic technology, Zip disks were great.

I would put the DAT backup drives on the list (too slow, not very much capacity and the drives ate tapes) except most people don't run tape backup.

[elana i am]

5. i used zip drives where i used to work

before the zip drives we used syquest drives. now those were a craptastic tech product. they should take the zip drives off the list and put the syquests on.

[MorningGlow]

6. You're right

SyQuest was way worse. I must've blocked the memory of them...

[Call Me Wesley]

8. IE 6,

just because most of my clients used it. dBASE IV as well ... ugh. Add Excel or MS Access to it, and you have the full round of worse. Iomega zip drive, yes. Real player just for a very short time.

Nothing else on the list, but there should be CompuServe and Netscape, too, which I both used.

[LynneSin]

9. I had a relative that bought her computer on one of those CompuServ Deals - a crappy one

She was able to get a really crappy HP desktop if she paid like $30/month for 3 years with CompuServ.

I cringed when I heard that one.

[Call Me Wesley]

12. It was the only service available here back in the days except for AOL.

I didn't had to buy a PC with the plan.

But you know what was funny? I never paid for it. They cut me off, and I called their number, which connected me to some German student who turned me on immediately again. I had to pay for the dial-up phone bill, though, and you don't wanna know ... :scared: I remember a Canadian buddy of mine on IRC staying on there for 24/7 for one month. (This was around 1996 I think.) He wasn't seen for a long time after he got a phone bill around $ 3,000.--

[Tuesday Afternoon]

10. zip drive

:applause:

that is all

[GoCubsGo]

35. I still have an external Zip drive.

Just stuck it in the electronics recycling box. They were a good thing at one time--before one could write to CDs and DVDs.

[hobbit709]

11. I have IE6 because it came with windoze. I don't use it.

As far as the rest of the list goes-zilch.

[sakabatou]

13. Windows Me

[hibbing]

30. Me too had Me

Hi,
I never had any problems with the thing myself. Ran it on a desktop for years until the computer itself just became outdated as Windows machines do. Maybe I was one of the lucky ones but all the programs I ran worked fine.

Why isn't Vista on the list? I never messed with that, but I know my work did not go to that at all and waited for XP.

Peace

[JCMach1]

32. ME was the worst... directly led to my first Linux box as I could never get ME

to operate properly again after a major crash. Recovery didn't even work.

[Amerigo Vespucci]

14. Had AOL for about a week when I got my first PC

I was impatient, I wasn't going to wait for Pac Bell to start up my account. I went online the day I set up my computer and the minute Pac Bell had the dial-up account rolling it was bye-bye AOL.

As fat as the rest:

2.RealNetworks RealPlayer (1999) (no longer use it)
8.Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 (2001)

I still have a copy of I.E. 6 installed because believe it or not, I still run into clients who use it, and if a site I build for them works for everyone else BUT them, they don't like that.

:-(

[Kali]

15. don't 8 tracks rate in there somewhere or is this all about the computers?

I am pretty sure I had IE6 back when, but thanks to the good people right here on DU (especially the computer help group) I have come a long way. Maybe not as far as some of them would like, but that isn't in any way their fault - they should all be really proud of their patience, altruism, and teaching abilities. I will forever be grateful to RoyGBiv for saving my ass over the phone one time when I got in over my head with my father's machine, even though he doesn't post here much anymore.:-(

[BlueIris]

16. 1. & 2. Oh, the shame.

I also bought a bunch of BMG music back in the day. Very sad.

[pscot]

17. I think I still have

my BOB t-shirt.

[JonLP24]

19. AOL is the only one I can think of

Maybe I used IE 6 but I'm not sure.

[Moondog]

21. Where to begin?

I owned stock in AOL, but never used it. Had a relative that was a VP there at one point. I made a fair amount of money, and sold out in '99, so I kept it.

Somewhere along the line, I got a copy of RealPlayer. Probably bundled with something else. When I still used Windows boxes. It didn't work, and since it was a Windows box, I didn't ever try to remove it. Just ignored it.

Had a copy of Windows Millenium bundled with something else. Never loaded it. Ditto Microsoft Bob.

Had a couple of Iomega Zip drives. One internal, one external. I used them, and I liked them. Never had any problems with them. Still have a dozen or so disks still lying around.

Got a CueCat in the mail, unsolicited, from Forbes magazine to which I had a subscription. Never tried to use it.

That is all.

[hunter]

22. I had AOL when it was mostly 8 bit and Geoworks users.

When AOL dropped those for Microsoft Internet Explorer I quit. It wasn't easy. I had to file a complaint with my credit card company.

Zip drives were a necessity anyplace that dealt with files larger than a floppy disk would hold. You could put a big file on a Zip disk and carry it someplace faster than you could send it over a dial-up connection.

[fishwax]

23. I had AOL, ME, and a Zip drive

I got great use out of my zip drive, actually -- no complaints about that. The other two, though, were frustrating in a variety of ways :)

[Paradoxical]

24. None of them.

[Rabrrrrrr]

25. My ZIP drive was awesome, and a real life saver at the time!! Syquest was the shit one.

Total piece of shit. Totally.

[kentauros]

39. You'd think PC World would make that distinction.

My Zip drive was great, too, and I know I still have zip-disks somewhere. They were indestructible compared to your average floppy :)

I guess it's considered "worst" because geeks update to the latest-and-greatest as soon as possible. While the rest of us update as money permits ;)

[Broken_Hero]

26. 5.Sony BMG Music CDs (2005)

thats the only one.

[Initech]

27. I had quite a few:

- Realplayer
- Zip Drive
- Microsoft Bob (came pre-loaded on the first Gateway I bought back in 1995)
- Internet Explorer 6
- Windows ME
- Sony BMG Music CDs (the Foo Fighters' album "In Your Honor" uses this technology)

[krispos42]

28. Yeah, had AOL for a while

We used it at my old job before we got bought and they threw a bunch of money into computers.


5 people sharing a dial-up AOL account on 200MHz Pentium PCs, to cable internet on 733MHz Pentium IIIs in one fell swoop. :-)

This was back in 2000. We had a portable ZIP drive, too, mostly for when we had to go someplace and put on lots of data. Once we had a CD burner, that kind of fell by the wayside.



I still have RealPlayer 10.5 installed; never use it.


I was a long-time MSIE user (finally went over to Firefox a couple of months ago) so I probably used version 6 at some point.

[NMDemDist2]

29. I was doing good, until I got to "Zip Drive"

ya got me there, altho I will say we loved it for a while.....

[Mojambo]

33. Microsoft Bob... lol. n/t

[LynneSin]

34. OMG you used BOB

:rofl:

[Mojambo]

47. No, but I used to work retailing used software.

We used to be able to sell Bob for ridiculously high prices.

It was such a spectacular failure that people actually sought it out as a novelty.

[pulledpork]

50. That was Melinda Gates' baby

Before she married Bill. I always held the theory that he married her to keep her from bankrupting the company. Sure, their OS platforms are infamous flops at times, but maybe Bill didn't want them to have any competition. :evilgrin:

[geardaddy]

36. Prodigy.

Remember that one?

[Alexander]

46. I had Prodigy as a kid. It was awesome for its time.

I played MadMaze a lot.

[av8rdave]

37. Don't forget Windows 95, 98, Vista

XP belongs there too, IMO.


I did use AOL at one time. I also used an Iomega Zip drive, IE6 and the BMG music CDs.

[ChoralScholar]

38. Where's the Packard Bell Navigator?

[ChoralScholar]

40. Relatively few.

The Complete List of Losers
1.America Online (1989-2006)
2.RealNetworks RealPlayer (1999)
3.Syncronys SoftRAM (1995)
7.Microsoft Bob (1995)
8.Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 (2001)
12.PointCast (1996)
16.Comet Cursor (1997)
18.IBM Deskstar 75GXP (2000)

[KamaAina]

41. I briefly had AOL

I was in a billing dispute with my dial-up provider and reached for the nearest AOL startup disk (also known as a "coaster" :-) ) in desperation. :puke:

[KamaAina]

42. self-delete

wrong spot

[KamaAina]

43. No Vista? Seriesly?

Teh suckage is strong with that one. :argh:

[struggle4progress]

44. AOL, IE, zipdrive

zipdrive was a stupid purchase: "ooo! it'll hold 100mb!" I've never unwrapped it

[Akoto]

45. AOL, IE6, Windows ME. Liked AOL early in the 'net age. n/t

[pulledpork]

48. What's the story behind the Sony BMG CD's?

I don't recall any negative news one way or the other there, and don't know of any flaws in the CD's I have, if any of them are Sony BMG's.

[denbot]

49. In my day those Zip drives were the cat's meow!

Get off my lawn!!!!!!!!!!!!!