25 Worst Tech Products of All Time

[Seacrest]

According to PC World http://www.pcworld.com/resource/printabl...772,00.asp [caution: unblockable pop up ad]

1. 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

I would not put the Zip drive on there.
They were great once they finally got past the COD issues and just before CR-Rs became affordable.
One needs to remember what came before them: Syquests, Bernoullis and magneto-opticals.

[blooz]

I agree, I got a lot of use out of Zips for a while.

Acrually, I don't have any problem with Real player, either. Granted it's not the most elegant program i've used…

[elmo3]

[quote Seacrest] According to PC World [caution: unblockable pop up ad]
Hmmmm, no pop up ad of any kind here

Anyway, Windows ME--completely agreed.

[maurycy]

WinME should be before RealPlayer on this list. At least RealPlayer is useable :-)

Alex

[Mike Sellers]

That was a fun read. Can't agree with you on the zip drive though. Other than making a nifty bookend when I velcroed all my deads ones together, I can't think of much nice to say about them.

[Zoidberg]

Yeah, RealPlayer is pretty usab–

BUFFERING… BUFFERING… BUFFERING… BUFFERING…

BUFFERING…


BUFFERING… BUFFERING… BUFFERING…

BUFFERING… BUFFERING…

[the_poochies]

I'd add Word 6 for the Mac and any version, any platform of Windows Media Player.

And Zip drives deserve to be included because I lost dozens of disks via the COD.

[Silencio]

The older Windows and Mac versions of RealPlayer totally blew chunks and are worthy of being high up on that list. Spyware galore for Windows, ugly GUI and general bugginess on the Mac. The current RealPlayer for Mac OS X isn't bad at all, but it feels like most of the content for Real has faded away.

I don't think the Zip drive should be on the list, either. There were many far worse products.

The Pippin was never actually released, IIRC. So why is it on the list?

The CueCat failed at its original application, but it was pretty neat how other programmers were able to hack it and do some neat stuff with it.

Microsoft Word 6 for Macintosh deserves to be on that list. Any version of Norton Utilities for Macintosh after, say, 3.5.1 (IIRC) -- or after Apple switched over to HFS+ -- should be on the list, as well.

[Zoidberg]

"Microsoft Word 6 for Macintosh deserves to be on that list."

Amen to that. I can remember going to get a cup of coffee after launching it, and it still not being loaded after I got back to my office. And I took two sugars *and* two creamers back then.

[aquilles10]

Can AOL count for two of the items on the top 25?