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Future tech that didn't make it?

8bit

8bit

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 4, 2004
20
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Tech that didn't "make it" still could have had quite a bit of influence on what made it. And even various things that made it didn't make it for long, like let's say "VHS".

Not sure why something like electric cars would be in consideration as they already "made it". They have actually been around in one capacity or another for a long time surfacing throughout history.
 
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Video CD

HDDVD

BeOS

Laser Disc

Virtual Boy

3D TV

Xerox Alto

AT&T Mod I Picturephone

Ford Nucleon

At Ease

Microsoft's Clippy
 
The Apple Lisa certainly paved the way for the Mac. I would say that like rotary engines, purely electric cars have yet to achieve widespread usage or acceptance. The jury is still out on that one.
 
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MiniDisc and DCC. Neither of the competitors to be a portable companion to CD really took off. Then MP3 players killed then totally. I believe MiniDisc retained some sort of foothold in studios for while.
 
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Betamax lost the consumer wars but it was a stunning success in the commercial world. Unsurprisingly the better technology was recognized by professionals.

All those shoulder mounted television cameras? Betacam, the most widely used tape format for Electronic News Gatering (ENG).

Betacam dethroned the reigning king, U-Matic. VHS never carved out a strong foothold in the commercial space.

However, videotape was never really future tech for consumers.

"Future tech that didn't make it" are really entire concepts that failed.

One videotape format eventually won over Joe Consumer and it had a long and popular life in the consumer marketspace.

Same with Blu-ray vs. HD-DVD. HD-DVD isn't future tech that failed. The tech was successful (high-density optical media based on blue lasers) it's just that one implementation was less popular and was eventually discontinued.

SACD is a better example of future tech that failed. It and any competitors it may have had all failed. Even optical media players sold five years ago didn't even support SACD. But even then, something better stepped into its place. Today Blu-ray Audio discs offers some great sounding music 96kHz/24-bit all playable on a typical standalone Blu-ray player.
 
Last edited:
Erehy Dobon said:
SACD is a better example of future tech that failed. It and any competitors it may have had all failed. Even optical media players sold five years ago didn't even support SACD. But even then, something better stepped into its place. Today Blu-ray Audio discs offers some great sounding music 96kHz/24-bit all playable on a typical standalone Blu-ray player.
Click to expand...

Codecs cost money. 6 channel analog audio jacks cost money. DSD audio wasn't incorporated into the hdmi spec until later, and only a few recievers supported it. My bluray player converts DSD into 176.4/24 KHz PCM (it's a sony, so of course it reads the discs), because my reciever (circa 2013)can't handle the audio. Curiously, more recent recievers in that range (marantz nr) decode dsd128 just fine. The most recent SACD in my collection is from 2018, and I'm led to understand that Channel Classics still releases discs in that format.
 
I have one SACD: Peter Gabriel's Shaking the Tree compilation album. I can't play it on any of my devices.

I can easily download 192kHz/24-bit FLACs or ALACs from HDtracks.com and play them at full resolution with my TEAC AI-101DA receiver (also circa 2013) doing the DAC. That receiver can also handle DSF and DFF but why would I want to deal with such files?

For sure I am not buying a more expensive Blu-ray player for one SACD.

SACD is future tech that didn't make it. I doubt if even one out of ten thousand people would recognize what it is.

Hell, I've ripped Blu-ray Audio discs and transcoded the files into lossless FLACs and ALACs.
 
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If you were suddenly plunked down here this summer from another planet, you could be forgiven for thinking that electrical power from wires strung along the way were an interesting idea that never quite made it.

Of course if the power company trimmed some trees in their right of way now and then, could make all the difference. Meanwhile it's nice to be back online after the latest three hour "vacation" from wall juice thanks to some t-storms and the stiff breeze that pushed them through here and brought us another blackout.
 
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Global Hypercolor T-Shirts. They had a summer of wild popularity (at least in the UK) before everyone realised you didn't want your t-shirt calling out where you were hot and sweaty! I think you can still get them but no-one wants them
 
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