Gadgets that Failed?

[FourBear]

Whether they were before their time, or just never really caught on, does anyone know of any "cool gadgets" that fizzled out of existence?

[Mike]

The DigiSette! It was a MP3 player built inside of a cassette, talk about nerdy. :p

http://www.coolhunting.com/images/digisette_duo-dx.jpg

[Liam]

Whatever happened to mini disks? Sony had those out for a while then they just kind of disappeared.

[capitalist_junkie]

ZIP drives. Although I use one. Always was a fan.

[Al]

I wouldn't say the zip drive failed it was just superseded over time, I was another happy zip drive user for 5 or so years (until I got that zip drive click of death noise).

[FourBear]

I always wanted a zip drive, then...things happened, I guess.

That DigiSette looks awesomely nerdy. Where could I look into getting one of those? lol.

[Mike]

We had a zip drive in one of our old computers, never used it though. Not once. :P

[Al]

When I had mine it was 100MB which was absolutely huge in then. I've probably still got an old zip drive or 2 knocking around some where.

[capitalist_junkie]

I had to use one in high school, and by the time I got around to college they were obsolete, but I still bought a ZIP drive and disk of of ebay.

[azn1art]

I used mine in Middle school but I think I used the 250MB ones.. All the school work used up about 4 or 5 disks? Yea... I had alot of school work..

[MarcE]

Wow - gadgets that failed. There's quite a list...

Does anyone remember the Apple Newton? (back when the apple logo was a rainbow coloured affair). Fantastic concept, but about 10 years ahead of it's time in terms of what the then-available technology could deliver.

Digital compact cassette - actually that was an idea always doomed to failure from the start but they get points for trying to keep interest in a dead format.

Also from Philips - the CD-I (CD-Interactive). You could - wait for it - listen to music, watch VideoCD movies AND play games all on the same system!

Lightpens - remember those great 80's movies where someone navigated menus on the green-screen monitor with the light pen? I think it's fair to say that they paved the way for the touch screen, so it didn't so much fail as evolve into a new technology.

There are probably more but I'm already showing my age so I'll quit now...

[pastrychef]

Atari and Commodore computer. Not to mention some of the cool game systems Atari had that didn't quite make it...

[FourBear]

Atari's a good one...I wanted to kill my dad when he got rid of it. We even had the headphones for it, and just about every game. You can find them in flea markets every now and then.

[JickBahTech]

See I would say ZIP and Atari were successes that then got complacent, or couldn't keep up with tech development.
My vote goes to the Audrey. Love that 3Com...

[Case]

what about the streo gaming glasses they were like a big thing at one point shippng with some video cards than BAM no more driver support and they are like impossible to get... and honestly i would love a pair :)