Whatever happened to...?

But this is a different one. Oh okay, Well, whatever happened to that? It went live? It went live. It is live because it was it was what the heck happened to the future? Well, yeah, which is similar to this one, yes, which, and today we decided this one would be whatever happened to dot dot dot? So who wants to start? I think you need to start. You've got a very impressive one that you want to go. It's the love of your life, I would say, technological life.

And well with with the last podcast, we were wondering about all these things that never really materialized and uh, you know protect things they call that vaporware, stuff that just never shows up. Um, and in this case, uh, most of what we decided to talk about, or at least the thing that he's talking about that I'm so interested in the things that came out, but then they just sort of disappeared, They went away, and we haven't

heard about them. And the one that I was going to start with is my very first computer, the Commodore Amiga. And those of you who have been in tech stuff for a long time, uh, probably remember the Amiga at least a little bit. I've run into a lot of people who just go, oh, yeah, well, um, the Amiga

was the brainchild of somebody named J. Minor Um. They actually started as a company called high Toro, and they had this idea that they were going to build a computer that was sort of low cost but could do a lot of stuff. And we're talking back in the early nineteen eighties when people didn't have computers on their desktops. Those of you, the younger set who are listening to this are probably going, what people didn't always have computers

on their desktops? Shut up anyway, um, um this original Amigo one thousand, Um. Well, just a tiny bit of background on the company, so High Toro sort of shot

the idea around. They were trying to make some money so that they could actually release the the computer and Jack Tramiel then at Atari gave them a million dollars as an investment, UM, but they couldn't pay it back, and so he made an offer to buy the company, which they felt was kind of low and um basically Commodore picked him up and helped him, you know, helped him out, and they launched the Amigo one thousand and uh.

It's notable for a couple of reasons. One it was it was powered by a motor role of sixty eight thousand ship, which is the same ship you found in the very very first Macintosh or the atari xt computers, and was the big competitor to the IBM which was on chet at that point. I think the IBM PC the very first PC. Um and uh so you know, big deal. What's what's the big deal? Well, at that point it had stereo sound and four thousand ninety six colors.

We're talking. Other people using IBM PCs were on monochrome monitors, you know, black and white, tan and black and green, that lovely green. Yeah. See. And and in the early early Apple machines, UM, you know from the Apple too. Well, the Apple two had color. But then you know this this was kind of it was sort of an advanced thing, and it also split up the computing power into a

bunch of different chips. It wasn't just a microprocessor. It also had other things UM that helped the microprocessor run tasks, which was at that point pretty revolutionary. And you would have figured that a computer that advanced would have dominated the market. Well, they didn't come out with UH some

some newer models. See, the original ones had something called kickstart, which was a floppy disk that you had to insert just to get the computer started, and then you write a boot disk, but it was on a floppy and then you'd have to eject that and put in the workbench, which is what we think of today, you know, the desktop with all your folders and and different icons on it. UM. The very first Amigas didn't even have hard drives in them. UM,

and then they came out with a couple other ones. UM. That first one launched in UH and I got mine shortly after that. But in UM eighty seven they came out with the Amiga two thousand, and that was a bigger machine with a hard drive, and then a smaller one which was sort of the utilitarian Commodore sixty four VIC twenty of the Amiga's was the Amiga five hundred. It was really affordable all in one machine and started catching on, especially in Europe. It was very popular in Europe.

UM the two thousand was popular because it knew. A company called New Tech came out with something called the Video Toaster, and suddenly everybody could do video processing on their computers. They could take video and they could put super impositions on it, you could put credits on it. A lot of TV shows started using because it was a really affordable system compared to the big systems you see in the giant control rooms on all those documentaries on TV. UM and after that they and and had

sort of modest success. Uh. They came out with a couple of different systems, The c D t V and the c D thirty two were attempts at sort of the home TV version of you know, being able to run Amiga games on your TV. But Commodore started running into some financial problems and they eventually ended up declaring bankruptcy and liquidating all their assets. And after that happened a couple of different companies bottom Um, Gateway of the cow famous cow boxes bought them out and actually started

doing something with the technology. But the problem is it this all happened at a very critical point when other computers were starting to become mass market mainstream software machines, you know, and there are all sorts of different things being written for it. Whendows three point one came out, um, you know, and then the Macintosh operating system started hitting its stride. The atari xt machines went away, so that

was the real competition. And by this point, by the time they started getting back on their feet with Gateway, they were too far behind. Yeah, and uh, currently the company is owned by some Amiga enthusiasts. Gateway sold it off. And um, there is an Amiga OS four point one. It runs on a system called the Amiga one SC. Basically, it's running on power PC chips, which the Macintosh abandoned a few years ago. Um, but you can, if you really want to buy, you can make your own Amiga

and buy a power PC motherboard for it. And um, it's actually somewhat affordable. I mean, the mother the cost the motherboard and the software is about um A hundred and fifty dollars something like that. So you could actually do this as a hobby, but not a lot of people are writing software for it anymore. So it's kind of they got minded a very bad time and have struggled to do it. But there are still some very demoted, demoted,

very devoted Amiga fans out there. Yeah, don't talk about and fifty dollars for an obsolete system that can't run anything. Is uh, that's right up your alley. Yeah, you're welcome. But you know, it's still thought of as a very very powerful system. It's just thought of as a very old It would have been really neat if it had caught on sort of thing and exactly whatever happened to defect and that, and that's exactly what what drove me

to this. So what what's your one? Um, I'm not going to wax as eloquent as uh as Chris did over the Amiga. It was a pet project. It just turns out that I don't have this soft spot for any particular technology. Um, you know, I'm a hard hearted, macho guy. So anyway, UM, I wanted to talk a little bit about the Capacitance Electronic disc player e D which was developed by R C A. Lots of okay PDQ.

So the C E D. Now, a lot of people have heard about the whole the whole videotape war, you know, the format war, which was the old VHS versus Beta Max. What you may not remember is that there were several other formats that came out around the same time as VHS and Beta Max were battling it out. Because even back then it was they were pretty expensive systems. VHS systems were not cheap and um so there were a lot of alternatives that hit the market, and some of

them were more successful than others. Like laser disc was a pretty successful one. It wasn't dominant, but it was successful, had higher quality, had a really uh devoted and almost maniacal fan base. Um I never owned a laser disc system, but my family purchased a ce D player, and what C e d s were were imagine, if you will,

an album cover for a vinyl album. If any of you out there remember what those look like, they're coming back, So I would imagine you've probably seen one giant dis Yeah, but inside an album cover, so you have it's a square, not not a sphere. On a circle so square, So you're that's what the discs looked like. Um. And actually it was a plastic coating that covered the disk. The

disc itself was inside the plastic. You slide that into the player, and the player had a diamond tipped stylus that would go across the surface of the disk inside this plastic casing, and it would measure the differences between the peaks and valleys on that disk to create the video and audio that you would see on your television

when you hooked it up to the TV. And halfway through a movie, you would be forced to to take the plastic casing out, flip it over, put it back in the player, and push play to watch the rest of it. And uh, and I think it could do maybe forty five minutes, maybe an hour per side. Um. And we had one of these, and uh, I can I remember two of the movies that we had on

it specifically. I remember we had Singing in the Rain and we had Raizors of the Lost Arc And I remember watching those movies a lot, which kind of explains my personality. I think, yeah, it explains why I start tap dancing with whips on a nearly daily basis also wonderful hobby, but I can't get into it. That's a different podcast. So anyway, this uh, this system surprisingly did not take off. For one thing, you couldn't record to it. It was just a play only format. Um. So VHS

had an advantage over that. Um. Also, it's just kind of bulky, and you know, I just didn't have a whole huge amount of appeal for most people besides my family, and so our c A halted production in nine six, and that was about the same time that VHS was really getting affordable and was taking over in the marketplace. So that's what happened to the C E D. So I have to ask you, I have to ask you the geeky question here. Do you still have it somewhere? I I, personally we do not still have it. Does

your family still own it? So my parents house, in the laundry room over in one corner sits the C E D player and our collection of ce ED disks. Yeah, that's that's kind of what I figured, because I don't ever throw anything out. I have both of my old amigas. So yeah, all right, next, oh yes, um, speaking of other technologies that caught on for a while and then

sort of disappeared. Uh, the Colico vision. Yes, I think actually you suggested this one to me because I had sort of been thinking about different game systems, and then I think this would have exemplifies that whatever happened to because you have Nintendo and you've got Atari, which you know has been here and then left and then been here again. But you know, the Clico sort of just fell off the face of the earth. So I did some research into it, and like Nintendo, actually they started

out doing something entirely different. Um, and they're very old. Uh. Kaliko was started in nineteen thirty two the Connecticut Leather Company, which is where co Leko comes from. Um, they sold leather to shoemakers. But in nineteen sixty video game console, I mean obvious progression. Hey, Nintendo made playing cards. Well I guess it's I mean, what games can you play with leaven? Never mind, we're getting back to the whips thing,

aren't we? Just all right? In nineteen sixty they were they started getting into plastic and they were making pools and apparently at one point they were one of the largest above ground pool manufacturers in the world. Um, they started getting into they basically dropped the leather stuff entirely and started getting into other plastic stuff and entertainment stuff. And uh, they came out with the Tellstar and Long

Time Listeners. No, that was their entry into the video game for format, and I own still own again being the geek, I have the Library of Electronic Things, Uh tell Us, which is essentially a palm game. There's three different versions of it, and they lost money on it. But that was in two. They tried again with the Colico Vision and again this is our thirty something coming out, but you know, it was really popular. As a matter of fact, they sold six million systems in three years,

which is not insubstantial. I mean, I realized that the WE and Xbox three sixty are blowing by that pretty quickly. But uh, this was in the infant infancy of the video game two. This was not you know, people didn't have two to shell over for a for a system like that, and I imagine it was a price tag like that seems pretty cheap now anyway, Um, they were beating Atari with the and the Mattel in television, which

I know, some of which I had an out a vcs. UM. The problem is, and they even came out with a home computer to piggyback on that, the Atom, which had a tape drive that came out in eight three. And you think, well, these guys were heavy into the computer and video game business. Well, unfortunately there was a crash of the video game industry, and uh, they were pretty good about seeing that coming. They dove out right before they dropped the video game thing altogether, right as it

was about to really hit. But unfortunately they they couldn't sustain their business. They did have the successful Cabbage Patch doll um but unfortunately, by they had filed for bankruptcy and they were bought by hasbro Ine and ironically Mattel. Mattel, who was their competitor that they were beating the pants off of with the the video game system now owns the Cabbage Patch doll. So there are remnants of Calico around, but the company itself is long been Modo. Cabbage Patch

Baby Land General been there, that still exists. It's just down the road from us here in Atlanta. Yeah, not too far. Um. So, yeah, you were mentioning Atari and also the video game crash. We can talk a little bit about what caused that. Essentially, what caused it was

loads and loads of really crappy games. Um. Yes. The problem was that developers saw the video game industry as like a gold mine and that all you had to do was throw some programming together, put it on a cartridge, slap some art on it, put in a box, and you would just have a license to print money. But that meant that there was very little quality control going on, and none of the video game console manufacturers had anything

in place to do quality control. They didn't care. They just they were creating the device upon which you played games. And um. Eventually, this huge glut of terrible games destroyed the market. I owned some of these terrible games. I owned the worst game ever made, according to most people, which was et Um. I knew what that was when you said that, yeah, stupid game. UM still can't beat a darn thing anyway. So yeah, Atari suffered many of

the same problems. That suffered the same setbacks during the the video game crash, but it actually stayed afloat it, you know, and they Atari came back to uh they developed the hundred and that was gonna be like their next big thing, and then the the the company got sold. Um. The someone bought the Atari Company, and Atari split up into two major different companies. There was the company that did the design for video games, and then there was

the company that did computers and video game consoles and um. So, they tried to come out back when the Sony Nintendo Wars began. Um so, this is after the video game

crash and the rebirth of the video game industry. They tried to come out with you know, they they tried a couple of times, but the Atari Jaguar was their final attempt, and that just didn't didn't really take off in the marketplace, even though it had pretty good stats in the sense of like if you compared it side by side with its contemporary areas, it wasn't a bad system.

It just didn't get a lot of support, and it died essentially in n and UH and now um both versions, both major divisions of Atari are just kind of minor departments in other companies like Hasbro and Midway Williams to be specific. All Right, how many more do you have? Well, I mean we could talk about the c d I, which was Phillips attempt at making a video game system which just crashed. I mean, they just didn't didn't have any good games on it, so no one bought it.

That's what happened to that. Or we could talk about Sega. Did you want to talk about Sega? I I don't have Sega on my list, but well, again, I mean, here's very video game heavy, but I'll go ahead and talk about Sega very quickly. Um. Of course, they had the Genesis, the Saturn, the Dreamcast. These were all really, you know, pretty decent systems. I have a Dreamcast. I still love the heck out of that machine. It's a great video game. It was a very very popular system,

and it was incredibly advanced when it came out. It beat the pants, you know, as far as graphics and sound are concerned, off the competition. But again, it just it didn't have the market share and didn't stay afloat, and so the Sega got out of doing hardware after the Dreamcast. Though, I hear rumors, and mind you, this is a rumor that Sega might get back into the game. Apparently they've they've trademarked a couple of different names, the Ring Wide and Ring Edge names, and some suspect that

that might end up being a new game system. So we have to keep our eyes peeled. Well, you never know. They they they just haven't been the same. You know, poor Sonic, he's he's been a little blue. Oh wait, he's always a little blow. Okay, well go onto your next one. Well, it's funny that you had mentioned game systems because I was thinking about three D. Oh yeah, forgot all about that. Well that it happened exactly. Um. As a matter of fact, we had an article that

we've found that we were doing. We had done an interview with someone at three D about how they created video games. We realized we should probably point out that three D o doesn't exist anymore. Um. But for a while, they were a hot, hot thing. They were thirty two bit system and they had licensed uh a number of different manufacturers including gold Star, Sanyo, Samsung, Creative Labs, Panasonic.

They all had licenses to make the machines. Um. And uh, you know the thing is they weren't just a video game system. They were fancied themselves as sort of a early multimedia hub. But they played video games and that was their main thing. And with a seven ms RP that didn't help anything. Um. And you know, people saw it as in a really expensive game system. Um it did, and it had sort of limited internal memory at thirty

two K, although everything was expandable. Was it was designed to be expanded to allow you to do lots of different things. But apparently it just never really caught on with the public's fancy. I know, I didn't have the seven hundred dollars to to show out for it. Part of the problem, I think is that computers as a whole where already able to do a lot of the things that these systems could do, and and some of the things that computers weren't good at, they were rapidly

approaching getting good at those things. So why buy a new system when you could just invest in the system that you already have and are familiar with, and it has a huge library of software already. Um. I mean it just from a risk perspective, it made more sense to go with a computer than a console at that point. So it's a good idea in a way. It just you know, the problem was that it was an idea

that the computer kind of already fulfilled. UM. I have one that has nothing to do with video games or entertainment. I wanted to talk about the Concorde. Yeah, the jet the supersonic jets. So um, yeah, this was the infamous jet that could go from like Paris to New York in just a few hours because it traveled at supersonic speeds, which means it went faster than the speed of sound. Um. And uh, well what happened to it? Why is the

con are not around anymore? Well, the main reason is because on July in two thousand there was a catastrophic crash which killed everyone on board and it crashed in France. Um. And then from that point on it just there was there were a lot of problems getting the Concorde off the ground literally because people weren't booking tickets on it

and it just wasn't Um. There was no way to to recoup the cost of operating the Concorde just from selling tickets, so it was super expensive to fly and maintain. And uh, I know it was also unpopular with people on the ground who hated hearing that thing fly over. Sonic booms are never very popular and um so in in uh, in early the early two thousand's, the the whole fleet was retired. Um. You can only really find

them now in museums. Uh. And that's it. I mean, there just wasn't enough money to keep that program going, which is why you don't see a lot of you know, you know, you don't see the supersonic programs out there anymore. And of course some companies are now working on hyper sonic flights which are go even faster, but again it's so expensive that it's hard to get a return on

your investment there. Speaking of sonic, I think now would be a good time to mention our sponsor, Audible dot com yep, yep, home of thousands of audio books, right, and if you sign up at www dot audible podcast dot com slash tech stuff, you will get your first download for free. And we have a couple of suggestions of what that that first download could be if if you so choose. That's true. Um I picked for mine this week, Uh, Where's my jet Pack? A guy to

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a cool book. And you can get either of those or one of fifty other audio books at audible dot com. If you sign up at www dot audible podcast dot com slash tech stuff. Remember that first download is free. That's true. And uh, if you have any questions for us, be sure to send us an email. Yes, well, if you drop us a line at tech stuff at how stuff works dot com. Yeah, in fact, I have an email right here. We can listen to it in a moment. Oh,

it's time for listener mail. So this one comes from Brent, ought from Reading, Pennsylvania. And yes, I know it's pronounced reading. I'm not not that much of a room. And Brent writes, Hey, Chris and John, after listening to your podcast on GPS games, I decided to go geo cashing. To get geo cashing dot com, and to my surprise, I had three cashes within point two miles from my house. I also wanted to let you know that an iPhone app has been

created called Geo cashing by a ground Speak project. You can upload fines and yes you can find them in Wi Fi areas because they are everywhere. It's free to sign up on the website and the app is nine dollars and nineine cents. Be surprised at how many cashes are right around you With the iPhone almost everyone can start geo cashing today. Thanks guys, love the podcast, and I should also mention our listener Dean Kidd also wrote

in to talk about ground Speak. So, um, yeah, there's an iPhone app right there if you want to go and do some geo cashing sounds like fun. Excellent, And if you guys want to learn any more about the sort of things we've been talking about, we have articles on video game systems, on video player systems, on on supersonic jets. All of that information can be found right now at how stuff works dot com and we'll talk to you again really soon for more on this and

thousands of other topics. Is it how staff works dot com, brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you