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The Something Awful Forums > Main > Post Your Favorite: Carefully Curated > Post the very best in obsolete and failed technology
 
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Johnwohl
Dec 8, 2011

WebDog posted:

I recall around 1999 there were miniature mobiles that had to be controlled with a dailing wand. They were utterly impractical as they could barely hold any numbers - something like 12.
There was a commercial highlighting it's size where a man's trying to find his phone in his jacket and resorts to calling it up from a pay phone.

Motorola Vader?

* # ¿ Sep 20, 2012 05:27
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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 17:13
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Johnwohl
Dec 8, 2011

Totally Reasonable posted:

Speaking of linear light gun games:



This thing allowed you to (sort of) interact with a show on TV. Shooting at certain flickering patterns would increase your score, while other patterns would cause damage, eventually causing the cockpit to eject and scare the poo poo out of your cat. Once VHS degradation rendered the show unplayable, you could still use the accessories to play the stupidest looking game of laser tag in history.

Captain Power was awesome. The toys not only worked with the VHS tapes, but also the TV show! Let me tell you, it was better than having Mortimer the pen for Picture Pages by a huge margin.

* # ¿ Jun 11, 2013 05:05
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Johnwohl
Dec 8, 2011

TommorowComesToday posted:

Alright so I was searching my memory for old stuff I used to have, and I remembered some hilariously terrible computer peripherals:

Quest For Fame - Featuring AEROSMITH!



So yeah, Quest For Fame was an FMV game that was a precursor to Guitar Hero/Rockband/Rocksmith from 1995 that came with a BADASS peripheral called the "V-Pick" which for the goddamn life of me I could never get to work on my 486DX/2. It wasn't until years later on my AMD K6-2 400 that I could even get the drat game to run, and found out it was awful.

Behold! The "V-Pick" in all it's glory!



Yes, this pile of crap I believe terminated in a joystick plug (game controller on an ol-fashioned sound card), but would only work with very few driver sets.

The V-Pick was supposed to be a big introductory piece of equipment set to showcase a big line of games from the developer, and I'm sure we can all guess how much fun strumming a tennis racket in time with music is.

The Microsoft Sidewinder Dual-Strike



http://www.fakeplasticrock.com/2010/06/the-original-virtual-guitar/

full size guitar controller for the same game. I had it. It was terrible.

* # ¿ Jun 11, 2013 05:15
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The Something Awful Forums > Main > Post Your Favorite: Carefully Curated > Post the very best in obsolete and failed technology