# The 25 Worst Tech Products of All Time: opinions wanted **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 31, 2006, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-25-worst-tech-products-of-all-time-opinions-wanted/358903 "2006-05-31T17:17:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2006, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-25-worst-tech-products-of-all-time-opinions-wanted/358903/41 "2006-06-01T01:15:51Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > You’d might imagine so, but in fact, WinME was a rush job, slung together and thrown out the door in an attempt to provide a ‘home’ OS counterpart for Win2KPro - of course it was based on Win9x, but it tried to mimic the look, feel and some of the features of the NT line/Win2K. It failed miserably; it was a buggy piece of crap; definitely less stable and less functional than Win98SE. I and many other people skipped WinME entirely and went from Win98SE to WinXP. The only ME machines I’ve worked on had ME preinstalled on them. One was horrible and got reverted to Win98SE, the other was my mom’s and is still working ok. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2006, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-25-worst-tech-products-of-all-time-opinions-wanted/358903/42 "2006-06-01T02:01:41Z")
I’d like to nominate my very first computer, the Atari 400. It wasn’t that it was low-powered or mysterious, or had a proprietary OS (at the time, every computer was low-powered, mysterious and had a proprietary OS.) The 400 came standard with something no other computer on the market even offered. A membrane keyboard. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, a membrane keyboard was simply a piece of plastic with characters prined on it. Underneath each character was a simple relay that never worked. Never. Touch the key too softly, and nothing would happen. Touch the key too hard, and watch the llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllletter scroll across the screen. About 90 minutes after the first 400 was sold, the first aftermarket keyboard went on the market. They never worked right, either. ---
**Author:** ![Dunderman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecb155/32.png) [@Dunderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunderman)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2006, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-25-worst-tech-products-of-all-time-opinions-wanted/358903/43 "2006-06-01T02:13:03Z")
I agree with many of the entries, but can’t help noticing that there’s not a single entry older than 1984, and only three older than 1994. Have we really gotten so much worse at making tech products that the 25 worst of all time happened in the last twenty-five years? Are we so incredibly sucky now that we pump out worthy entries every year? ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2006, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-25-worst-tech-products-of-all-time-opinions-wanted/358903/44 "2006-06-01T02:28:56Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > I’d like to nominate my very first computer, the Atari 400. It wasn’t that it was low-powered or mysterious, or had a proprietary OS (at the time, every computer was low-powered, mysterious and had a proprietary OS.) The 400 came standard with something no other computer on the market even offered. > > A membrane keyboard. Au contraire, mon ami. The famed [Timex-Sinclair 1000](http://oldcomputers.net/ts1000.html) also had a membrane keyboard. It was also equipped with a 16K RAM pack that attached to the back of the computer and if you touched it, or even looked at it wrong, you’d accidentally reset the computer. I loved it. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2006, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-25-worst-tech-products-of-all-time-opinions-wanted/358903/45 "2006-06-01T02:43:19Z")
> [@fishbicycle](#): > > Oh yeah! Another vote here for Flash. I hate it so much I’ve uninstalled it completely. First, I went with FlashBlock, but I ended up with hundreds and hundreds of blocked URLs. I got tired of that crap, so I searched for a tool to remove it, and I won’t have it on my computer. If there’s one thing I hate worse than being bombarded with ads, it’s being bombarded with animated, moving, colorful ads. I disagree on Flash. It has its place… it’s great for animating cartoons, for example. But there are places where it should not be used. Websites with flash-only interfaces are a prime example. I understand that a lot of those hovering ads use dynamic HTML layers and Javascript to get out in front of the content you actually want to read. Thay’d be equally annoying whether they used Flast for _their_ content, or just a black square with text. Did anyone ever actually _buy_ Microsoft Bob? ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2006, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-25-worst-tech-products-of-all-time-opinions-wanted/358903/46 "2006-06-01T02:46:13Z")
> [@zoid](#): > > Given that they included Windows ME, how the heck did OS2 not make the list? > Now THAT was a piece of crap! I’m interested in knowing why you think that. My former employer had it enterprise-wide for many years and it worked great for us. It was the first real multi-tasking, multi-threaded operating system back when Windows was still based on DOS and NT was a buggy, impossible to install, impossible to maintain system with no drivers and no applications. Properly set up, OS/2 was bulletproof. After decades of working with DOS, it was amazing to be able to close out one app that had stopped working without crashing the whole system. An OS/2 machine could run for weeks without crashing or rebooting, which no other PC OS could do at the time. Proof of its reliability is that it was certified as a reliable system for use in banking applications. OS/2 Server is still running many servers behind the scenes around the world. My friend who ran the IT department (and hates Microsoft) still runs OS/2 on his home computer. Windows 2000 and Win XP are about as good, but OS/2 was there a decade earlier. If only IBM had kept developing it, or handed it over to someone who would, it might have become a real competitor to Windows. ---
**Author:** ![fishbicycle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aeb1de/32.png) [@fishbicycle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fishbicycle)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2006, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-25-worst-tech-products-of-all-time-opinions-wanted/358903/47 "2006-06-01T02:47:41Z")
I haven’t thought of the Atari 400 in ages. I have one in a box in my closet, that came here from Canada with me. With cassette tape drive and several cartridges, including BASIC. Still works, too. Picked it up at a Salvation Army store in Hamilton for $5. I can’t think of a single thing I could do with it now (not that I ever did much with it anyway). I did use it to generate an NTSC signal to sync my Hi-Fi VCR when I used to record audio on it. Without a picture, the speed would wander all over the place. ---
**Author:** ![Q.N.Jones](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/3da27b/32.png) [@Q.N.Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.N.Jones)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2006, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-25-worst-tech-products-of-all-time-opinions-wanted/358903/48 "2006-06-01T03:03:08Z")
I knew the IBM PCjr would be on there. That was my family’s first computer, back in the mid-80s. It was in the repair shop every other week for a couple of years, until one of the techs there gave us some great advice, which was: When it’s not working right, pick up the CPU and drop it back onto the desk from a height of about 6 inches. Worked pretty well after that. But what do I know? I only used the thing to play **King’s Quest** and **Jumpman** anyway. ---
**Author:** ![amarinth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3be4f8/32.png) [@amarinth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarinth)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2006, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-25-worst-tech-products-of-all-time-opinions-wanted/358903/49 "2006-06-01T05:45:19Z")
**Microsoft Bob** doesn’t belong the list. It was just stupid but it didn’t crash your computer, it didn’t eat your data, it didn’t infect anything, it didn’t corrupt your computer and it worked exactly as advertised. It was a horrible marketing mistake (kind of like New Coke), but it wasn’t actively evil, just really dumb. ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2006, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-25-worst-tech-products-of-all-time-opinions-wanted/358903/50 "2006-06-01T05:46:54Z")
As a summer intern in 1992, I worked for a place that had a single-vendor contract with IBM. That meant we had to use only IBM hardware and software, and the word processing software was called “DisplayWrite.” I’ve never met such a user-belligerent program in my life (not counting viruses, of course). That program certainly belongs on the list. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2006, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-25-worst-tech-products-of-all-time-opinions-wanted/358903/51 "2006-06-01T06:37:42Z")
I haven’t used many. From time to time we got on AOL before getting a real ISP, but never long enough to be annoyed. I’ve never used IE of any variety. Some of these products did more harm to their makers than their customers. I got a CueCat - but was there ever any reason to install it? My addition - the TI home computer from about 1981 - the one shilled by Bill Cosby. I don’t know if it was crap or not, but it taught TI the lesson that you don’t get into pricewars with people with lower product costs than you. I actually knew someone who bragged about being one of the designers of that thing - he was an idiot in other ways also. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2006, 7:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-25-worst-tech-products-of-all-time-opinions-wanted/358903/52 "2006-06-01T07:55:02Z")
> [@InvisibleWombat](#): > > **15. Iomega Zip Drive (1998)** > > I have to disagree with this one. I used the 100Mb Zip drives for years and never had a problem. You’ve got to be kidding. You realize you sound exactly like a guy who “smoked for years” and is fit as a fiddle, right? It wasn’t just that they failed – it’s that they failed regularly, catastrophically and were completely unrecoverable. I lost the bulk of the mesh files from a 3D Studio project I’d been working on for a couple of months. Click-click-click. My best friend, who I’d enthusiastically recommended the damned things to, didn’t _entirely_ take my later warning not to trust it to heart. She lost a bunch of Photoshop files, maybe three months after my fiasco. For months, I’d holler “IoMega!” when I needed a particularly _nasty_ curse in moments of pain or anger. If you didn’t get burned, you were just _lucky._ ---
**Author:** ![TLDRIDKJKLOLFTW](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/51bf81/32.png) [@TLDRIDKJKLOLFTW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TLDRIDKJKLOLFTW)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2006, 8:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-25-worst-tech-products-of-all-time-opinions-wanted/358903/53 "2006-06-01T08:36:04Z")
No Minidisc? No Betamax? No Rambus? ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2006, 8:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-25-worst-tech-products-of-all-time-opinions-wanted/358903/54 "2006-06-01T08:48:37Z")
> [@VCO3](#): > > No Minidisc? No Betamax? No Rambus? Minidisc remains popular in some niches, despite its flaws. Betamax? Apart from losing the format war, what was actually wrong with it? ---
**Author:** ![SurrenderDorothy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/surrenderdorothy/32/1221_2.png) [@SurrenderDorothy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SurrenderDorothy)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2006, 9:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-25-worst-tech-products-of-all-time-opinions-wanted/358903/55 "2006-06-01T09:00:32Z")
the only ones I’ve used were CometCursor and IExplore. I was stubborn about giving up IExplore until it started crashing about two minutes after opening a browser. I decided it wasn’t worth it and just switched to firefox. Then I tried going back when my dad fixed it and was amazed at how much it sucked. As for cometcursor… I think that’s actually still on this computer. I think my sister uses it. The cursors are cute… heck, as long as I’m not allowed to uninstall it, I wonder if they have anything interesting… ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2006, 9:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-25-worst-tech-products-of-all-time-opinions-wanted/358903/56 "2006-06-01T09:11:54Z")
> [@InvisibleWombat](#): > > \*\* > > **Almost every automotive gas gauge out there** > > Can’t anybody make a gas gauge that’s linear? All three of my vehicles still read “full” (or higher) after driving 50 or more miles. The distance between 0 and 1/4 is nowhere near the same as the distance between 1/2 and 3/4. The values change radically depending on whether I’m going uphill or downhill (my Jeep’s gas gauge fluctuates by 3/8 of a tank). It’s not a bug, it’s a _feature!_ 😃 Car makers deliberately do this, you see. You know why? Because they got tired of ignorant futzes out there not realizing that when the gas gauge got close to “E” that they needed to find a gas station. So to solve this problem, they redesigned the gas gauges to read wrong. They’re fairly accurate when they’re **above** 1/2 a tank, but once you get below that point, they’re designed to read **lower** than what’s in the tank. This is why you can drive 50+ miles after the gauge hits “E” without running out of gas (it’s also why they put the low fuel lights on cars, so that when you’re _really_ low, you might just figure out you need to gas up). ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2006, 10:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-25-worst-tech-products-of-all-time-opinions-wanted/358903/57 "2006-06-01T10:00:49Z")
> [@commasense](#): > > It was the first real multi-tasking, multi-threaded operating system … for the IBM-clone PC world, which means it was one of the _last_ of that kind of OS ever independently invented. Possibly _the_ last, given how closely WNT mirrors VMS. Remember, kids, computers weren’t invented in 1982. > [@](#): > > Windows 2000 and Win XP are about as good, but OS/2 was there a decade earlier. If only IBM had kept developing it, or handed it over to someone who would, it might have become a real competitor to Windows. IBM stopped marketing and selling OS/2 in 2005 because Linux is both more popular on the same hardware and better. Given IBM’s penchant for extreme backwards-compatibility (_vide_ z/Series computers feeding simulated card decks to programs written and compiled before anyone knew who John Lennon was), OS/2 probably hung on a decade longer than it would have at any other company on Earth. OS/2 was a reasonable alternative to Windows if you didn’t rely on any Microsoft software, had to keep 286s in service far longer than any rational person would have, and had a good enough support contract from IBM to keep things working. Now that Linux offers all of that and a lot more on a more stable foundation, OS/2 is quite superfluous. > [@Q.N. Jones](#): > > When it’s not working right, pick up the CPU and drop it back onto the desk from a height of about 6 inches. I presume you left the case open for this procedure, correct? > [@Mangetout](#): > > You’d might imagine so, but in fact, WinME was a rush job, slung together and thrown out the door in an attempt to provide a ‘home’ OS counterpart for Win2KPro - of course it was based on Win9x, but it tried to mimic the look, feel and some of the features of the NT line/Win2K. It failed miserably; it was a buggy piece of crap; definitely less stable and less functional than Win98SE. I never used Windows 98 in any flavor, but I did use Windows 3.11, 95, and Me. (I think the official sales fluff spelled it ‘Me’ as opposed to ‘ME’. The only thing worse than content-free gloss is _infantile_ content-free gloss.) That’s a pity, because 98SE is probably the last version of Windows I would have liked. My shitlist for Me, by me: [ul] [li] **None of the good parts of DOS** : Building an OS around DOS is inherently a bad idea. DOS doesn’t even attempt to control how programs behave, so anything from a text editor to a clock can format your hard drive and bombard you with goat porn. Every Windows version from 1 to Me tried to some extent to mitigate the loss, but they all fought a losing battle.[/li] That doesn’t mean DOS has no use. If you’re on the Titanic, you might as well travel first-class, and that means being able to run the great DOS games in all their glory on a native platform. Windows always provided that by allowing you to boot into DOS Mode. That wasn’t an option with Me, rendering a large number of games useless for no good reason whatsoever. [Here’s a patch to assist the poor sods still running this POS who want to play their collection of DOS-based games.](http://www.geocities.com/mfd4life_2000/) (Yeah, there’s probably some business software that needs DOS Mode, but who cares?) [li] **All of the crap parts of Windows** : At its best, Windows was a component of DOS and allowed DOS users to do the same things and more in a fairly good-looking graphical environment. At its worst, Windows stood between you and what you needed to do with a moronic cascade of menus and windows and dialogue boxes and a complete lack of actual tools. I remember when Quick BASIC was a standard part of Windows installations, and when there were a good number of smaller tools that simply came with the OS. A lot of that went away in Me and got replaced by meaningless wibble.[/li][/ul] > [@Priceguy](#): > > I agree with many of the entries, but can’t help noticing that there’s not a single entry older than 1984, and only three older than 1994. Have we really gotten so much worse at making tech products that the 25 worst of all time happened in the last twenty-five years? Are we so incredibly sucky now that we pump out worthy entries every year? Or maybe, just _maybe_, and this is a wild theory, it’s a Windows PC magazine running a fluff piece that wants to focus on products its readers actually remember and remember using. Products that aren’t on there, but should be: [ul] [li] **Netscape 4** : Bane of web developers, it will misrender a page into complete unreadability if you use CSS it doesn’t quite understand.[/li][li] **gcc 2.96** : Never an official release. It was created by Red Hat in a move the company will never live down by taking an unstable development branch, adding a few patches, and putting it into Red Hat Linux 7.0 as the default C compiler. gcc 2.96-54 couldn’t even compile the Linux kernel.[/li][li] **DVD encryption** : Both trivial and illegal to break, this is Exhibit A in any discussion of how monumentally stupid both current copyright law and the MPAA are, and how stupid the MPAA expects all of us to be. **It doesn’t even prevent copying!** [/li][/ul] ---
**Author:** ![fishbicycle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aeb1de/32.png) [@fishbicycle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fishbicycle)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2006, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-25-worst-tech-products-of-all-time-opinions-wanted/358903/58 "2006-06-01T12:27:40Z")
Regarding the minidisc format, it failed as a consumer product. It records in a proprietary lossy format, and audio purists have an aversion to lossy audio. Where it really shines is in radio, where it replaced the tape cartridge. It has on-disc editing and a bunch of other features that make it ideal for use in the control room. I don’t know anyone who would have one in their home, though. Anybody remember the Elcaset? ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2006, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-25-worst-tech-products-of-all-time-opinions-wanted/358903/59 "2006-06-01T13:20:45Z")
All in all, PDAs have been quite a disappointment. I have had three, two have failed, and the company (Palm in fact) no longer supported their two-year-old device. I suppose they are supposed to be disposable. In a related way, those tablet computers seem to be a failure so far. All I want is a honking huge PDA that I can write into Word with. As far as I know, nobody really has that. ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2006, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-25-worst-tech-products-of-all-time-opinions-wanted/358903/60 "2006-06-01T13:28:20Z")
I have been using MiniDisc for years in my job. I am a journalist, and use it to record interviews and conference sessions, in addition to the real-time notes I take. I can then come home, copy the recordings to my computer, and transcribe or just listen to them while I write up the session. Much higher audio quality than the micro-cassettes I had been using before, longer recording times, and all the advantages of having your data in the digital domain. I don’t use MD for music, though. And Sony’s propietary software (that you have to use) is crap, but at least the latest version runs without crashing the computer. It does, for some reason, disable Windows’ energy saving screen-blanker. :rolleyes: So I have to reboot after every use. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-25-worst-tech-products-of-all-time-opinions-wanted/358903.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-25-worst-tech-products-of-all-time-opinions-wanted/358903.md?page=4)