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(not completely OT) PC World's choices for the 25 Worst Tech Products of All Time
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| http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/arti...772,pg,8,00.asp
PC World's choices for the 25 Worst Tech Products of All Time
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)
--
MGW
Hofstadter's Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even
when you take into account Hofstadter's Law. - Douglas Hofstadter
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| Andy Dingley 2006-05-26, 11:29 pm |
| On Fri, 26 May 2006 21:43:32 +0100, "William Tasso"
<SpamBlocked@tbdata.com> wrote:
>
>was 'of its time' I thought - was it really that bad?
Yes. dBase II was ground-breaking, dBase III was pretty handy. IV was
just playing catch-up though and flopped.
I don't think Foxpro or Clipper killed dBase though - they gave it a run
for its money, but it was Access that finally killed it. There's a lot
wrong with Access, but people did keep buying it instead of dBase.
Mind you, none were as horrible as Paradox
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| Andy Dingley 2006-05-26, 11:29 pm |
| On Fri, 26 May 2006 20:56:22 GMT, "Auggie" <Imperial.Palace@Rome.It>
wrote:
>AOL brought internet to the masses.
Like hell it did - it brought AOL to the masses. Even after the Web
became a serious product, AOL was still trying to sell its own little
walled-garden version.
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| Leonard Blaisdell 2006-05-26, 11:29 pm |
| In article <i95f72d9ee3v96cd45lacp17l13bvqe31q@4ax.com>,
Andy Dingley <dingbat@codesmiths.com> wrote:
> I don't think Foxpro or Clipper killed dBase though - they gave it a run
> for its money, but it was Access that finally killed it. There's a lot
> wrong with Access, but people did keep buying it instead of dBase.
Things get all blurry since Microsoft bought Foxpro in 1992 and from
what I read on the web just now, Access appeared at the end of 1992.
FWIW.
<http://www.foxprohistory.org/people_microsoft.htm>
<http://www.aldex.co.uk/access.html>
leo
--
<http://web0.greatbasin.net/~leo/>
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| trevor 2006-05-26, 11:29 pm |
| Beauregard T. Shagnasty wrote:
> William Tasso wrote:
>
>
> Yes it was bad.
>
> I've been a database guy since the late 70s. When dBASE II came out, I
> thought I was in hog heaven! Then dBASE III. Wow. Oh, but slow. Then
> FoxBase came out, a clone of dBASE. I never looked back.
>
> FoxBase, FoxPro for DOS, FoxPro for Windows (3.1), Visual FoxPro. Best
> mid-tier database system you can find.
>
i keep racking my brain....when did i encounter dbase. some hideously
overburdened piece of crapware cobbled together by a not-for-prof i think.
thank god i can't remember the details.
what pains me about the whole evolution right up through Access is that the
guys at IBM had resolved the basic issues Microsoft continued to beat it's
head against the wall on until they began to adopt SQL. about 20 years. 20
freaking years. it's doesn't have to be right, it just has to be Microsoft.
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| Beauregard T. Shagnasty 2006-05-26, 11:29 pm |
| trevor wrote:
> Beauregard T. Shagnasty wrote:
>
>
> i keep racking my brain....when did i encounter dbase. some hideously
> overburdened piece of crapware cobbled together by a not-for-prof i
> think. thank god i can't remember the details.
It originally came out of JPL. Here's a detailed account of the history
of the company.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashton-Tate
> what pains me about the whole evolution right up through Access is
> that the guys at IBM had resolved the basic issues Microsoft
> continued to beat it's head against the wall on until they began to
> adopt SQL. about 20 years. 20 freaking years. it's doesn't have to be
> right, it just has to be Microsoft.
<g>
--
-bts
-Warning: I brake for lawn deer
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| Blinky the Shark 2006-05-27, 3:55 am |
| William Tasso wrote:
> Fleeing from the madness of the jungle
> MGW <mgw1979@hotmail.com> stumbled into news:alt.www.webmaster
> and said:
>
>
> These three for sure - didn't recognise most of the others so I guess that
> means they qualify by default. But this ...
Shirley you remember the ZIP drive's famous COD (Click Of Death) debacle
several years ago, where their drives were emitting a click and then
dying. :) (IIRC, it's #15, but they don't limit the entry to that
particular issue, which was eventually corrected.)
>
> was 'of its time' I thought - was it really that bad?
I didn't know it was bad. I've used dB IV format/syntax/whatever in
other programs and had no issues.
--
Blinky RLU 297263
Killing all posts from Google Groups
The Usenet Improvement Project: http://blinkynet.net/comp/uip5.html
Coming Soon: Filtering rules specific to various real news clients
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| Auggie wrote:
> AOL brought internet to the masses. Without AOL the internet probably
> wouldn't even be a shadow of what it is now, and there are alot of
> companies that can say (but probably won't) that they owe their existences
> (and fortunes) to AOL bringing computers and the internet to millions of
> Americans (PC World probably being one of them).
Nonsense. The Internet had reached critical mass long before AOL woke up to
it. They started with their own proprietary dial-up system, much like
Compuserve (who they bought) & others. When they finally realised they
needed to embrace the Internet, they did it (and continue to do it) with
non-standards-compliant software that's shoddy and brain-damaged. AOL
continues to *follow*, not lead, which is why it's rapidly losing
customers.
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| On Sat, 27 May 2006 10:35:01 +0200, Steve <usenet@diverse-art.com>
scrawled:
> Nonsense. The Internet had reached critical mass long before AOL woke up to
> it. They started with their own proprietary dial-up system, much like
> Compuserve (who they bought) & others. When they finally realised they
> needed to embrace the Internet, they did it (and continue to do it) with
> non-standards-compliant software that's shoddy and brain-damaged. AOL
> continues to *follow*, not lead, which is why it's rapidly losing
> customers.
They also are paternalistic and refuse to listen to their customers'
expressed needs. For example, several years ago they made it
impossible to send plain text email. Not difficult - impossible. I
ran an email list that required plain text posting (long story,
changing was not an option.) My listmembers (and others) were
begging AOL to let them send plain text and met a stone wall.
--
MGW
Hofstadter's Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even
when you take into account Hofstadter's Law. - Douglas Hofstadter
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| Matt Probert 2006-05-27, 7:02 pm |
| On Fri, 26 May 2006 21:43:32 +0100, "William Tasso"
<SpamBlocked@tbdata.com> wrote:
>Fleeing from the madness of the jungle
>MGW <mgw1979@hotmail.com> stumbled into news:alt.www.webmaster
>and said:
>
>
>These three for sure - didn't recognise most of the others so I guess that
>means they qualify by default. But this ...
>
>
>was 'of its time' I thought - was it really that bad?
>
dBase 3+ was good, the numerous clones better (Clipper being the
best), version IV was the plummet down the sad slope of losing the
plot....
Matt
--
Veritas Vincti
http://www.probertencyclopaedia.com
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| Matt Probert 2006-05-27, 7:02 pm |
| On Fri, 26 May 2006 21:27:58 GMT, "Beauregard T. Shagnasty"
<a.nony.mous@example.invalid> wrote:
>William Tasso wrote:
>
>
>Yes it was bad.
>
>I've been a database guy since the late 70s. When dBASE II came out, I
>thought I was in hog heaven! Then dBASE III. Wow. Oh, but slow. Then
>FoxBase came out, a clone of dBASE. I never looked back.
>
>FoxBase, FoxPro for DOS, FoxPro for Windows (3.1), Visual FoxPro. Best
>mid-tier database system you can find.
>
I'd go for Clipper instead. But we'll sound like a pair of train
spotters if we start arguing <g>
Suffice to say, I still use Clipper for some solutions.
Matt
--
Veritas Vincti
http://www.probertencyclopaedia.com
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| Matt Probert wrote:
> On Fri, 26 May 2006 15:16:04 -0400, MGW <mgw1979@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> Wot? No Sinclair C5 ?
Or most other things invented by Sinclair. Of course, we have to cut the
Sinclair QL a little slack because it got Linus Torvalds started...
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| DoobieDo 2006-05-28, 3:52 am |
| "Beauregard T. Shagnasty" <a.nony.mous@example.invalid> wrote in message
news:ypKdg.101667$Fs1.24717@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
> William Tasso wrote:
>
>
> Yes it was bad.
>
> I've been a database guy since the late 70s. When dBASE II came out, I
> thought I was in hog heaven! Then dBASE III. Wow. Oh, but slow. Then
> FoxBase came out, a clone of dBASE. I never looked back.
>
me too :) Still got the disks...
> FoxBase, FoxPro for DOS, FoxPro for Windows (3.1), Visual FoxPro. Best
> mid-tier database system you can find.
>
With Supercalc and Wordstar, all we ever needed for the office.
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