Article: 28251 of alt.folklore.computers From: Pete Fenelon Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: The next big things that weren't Date: Mon, 07 Oct 2002 16:49:18 -0000 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Message-ID: Sender: Pete Fenelon References: <81f33a98.0210070754.352e9542@posting.google.com> User-Agent: tin/1.5.12-20020427 ("Sugar") (UNIX) (FreeBSD/4.6-STABLE (i386)) X-Complaints-To: abuse@supernews.com Lines: 32 Path: news.meer.net!sea-read.news.verio.net!dfw-artgen!iad-peer.news.verio.net!news.verio.net!news.maxwell.syr.edu!sn-xit-03!sn-xit-06!sn-post-01!supernews.com!corp.supernews.com!not-for-mail Xref: archive.mv.meer.net alt.folklore.computers:28251 gswork wrote: > What's you favorite example of a 'next big thing' in the computer > world, throughout it's history, which was much heralded and talked > about at the time, but dwindled into obscurity shortly afterwards? Here's a few off the top of my head, in roughly chronological order - you can see I got interested in computing in about the early 80s :) Bubble memory. iAPX 432. The Last One (an old CP/M program generator). Xerox's attempt to seize the corporate desktop with the Star. The Epson QX-10 and Valdocs. MSX (at least, outside Japan). The Elan Enterprise (aka Flan, Samurai etc.) The Sinclair QL (and its brethren the One-Per-Desk and the Tonto). Intel 860. NeWS the windowing system. Zoomracks. The program that could've the killer PDA app if there'd been PDAs. FDDI. ATM to the desktop. IPv6 (but there's still hope). SGI's Intel-based Visual Workstations. Bluetooth. pete -- pete@fenelon.com "there's no room for enigmas in built-up areas" HMHB