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Sixty innovative tech products from the 1980s that failed miserably. Some of them you begged your parents for. Some of them died in a warehouse before anyone ever saw one. All sixty were supposed to be the future, and every single one of them lost.
From the Timex Sinclair 1000 sitting in a drugstore aisle for ninety nine dollars, to the Coleco Adam that erased its own tapes, to the Apple Lisa that Apple buried in a landfill in Utah, this is the full countdown of the decade's most ambitious flops. The Vectrex. The Power Glove. The Sinclair C5. The IBM PCjr and its rubber keyboard. Xerox's Star, which invented the desktop you are using right now and sold almost none. RCA's SelectaVision, twenty years of research beaten by a single missing feature. And at number one, the format war everybody still argues about.
If you grew up plugging these things into the back of a television set, this one is for you.
Sources and further reading:
Computer History Museum collections and oral histories, https://computerhistory.org
Byte Magazine archive, 1980 to 1989, https://archive.org/details/byte-magazine
The Centre for Computing History, https://www.computinghistory.org.uk
Apple Computer, Inc. v. Franklin Computer Corp., 714 F.2d 1240, https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/714/1240/34089/
Polaroid Corp. v. Eastman Kodak Co., federal court records, https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/641/828/1458152/
InfoWorld, weekly issues, 1982 to 1988
Popular Science and Popular Mechanics consumer electronics coverage, 1981 to 1989
The New York Times business coverage of RCA SelectaVision, 1981 to 1984
Knight-Ridder annual reports and contemporary press coverage of Viewtron, 1983 to 1986
Texas Instruments and Coleco Industries annual reports, 1983 to 1985
You can contact me at: thefatalboard@proton.me
This channel is made by an enthusiast who loves business and technology history — nothing more. All videos are for educational and entertainment purposes only and reflect my personal views and interpretations. I research each story carefully using publicly available sources, but errors or omissions can happen. Nothing here is professional, financial, or legal advice, and this channel is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by any company mentioned.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCb0ps9eCp0y6yP1Xg4sDDFw?sub_confirmation=1
Sixty innovative tech products from the 1980s that failed miserably. Some of them you begged your parents for. Some of them died in a warehouse before anyone ever saw one. All sixty were supposed to be the future, and every single one of them lost.
From the Timex Sinclair 1000 sitting in a drugstore aisle for ninety nine dollars, to the Coleco Adam that erased its own tapes, to the Apple Lisa that Apple buried in a landfill in Utah, this is the full countdown of the decade's most ambitious flops. The Vectrex. The Power Glove. The Sinclair C5. The IBM PCjr and its rubber keyboard. Xerox's Star, which invented the desktop you are using right now and sold almost none. RCA's SelectaVision, twenty years of research beaten by a single missing feature. And at number one, the format war everybody still argues about.
If you grew up plugging these things into the back of a television set, this one is for you.
Sources and further reading:
Computer History Museum collections and oral histories, https://computerhistory.org
Byte Magazine archive, 1980 to 1989, https://archive.org/details/byte-magazine
The Centre for Computing History, https://www.computinghistory.org.uk
Apple Computer, Inc. v. Franklin Computer Corp., 714 F.2d 1240, https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/714/1240/34089/
Polaroid Corp. v. Eastman Kodak Co., federal court records, https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/641/828/1458152/
InfoWorld, weekly issues, 1982 to 1988
Popular Science and Popular Mechanics consumer electronics coverage, 1981 to 1989
The New York Times business coverage of RCA SelectaVision, 1981 to 1984
Knight-Ridder annual reports and contemporary press coverage of Viewtron, 1983 to 1986
Texas Instruments and Coleco Industries annual reports, 1983 to 1985
You can contact me at: thefatalboard@proton.me
This channel is made by an enthusiast who loves business and technology history — nothing more. All videos are for educational and entertainment purposes only and reflect my personal views and interpretations. I research each story carefully using publicly available sources, but errors or omissions can happen. Nothing here is professional, financial, or legal advice, and this channel is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by any company mentioned.
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