Rest in peace, Microsoft PC peripherals. Goodnight ceaselessly, Microsoft AspectWinder. Farewell, SPOT Watch.
You’ve in all probability heard of the Google Graveyard, the assortment of apps, companies and merchandise that Google shut down earlier than their time. But like several huge firm, Microsoft additionally tried and didn’t make sure merchandise work. In mild of Microsoft’s choice to discontinue PC peripherals like the Microsoft Sculpt Desktop Keyboard, let’s have a look at some of the merchandise that litter the Microsoft hardware graveyard.
Microsoft RAMCard/SoftCard/SystemCard
Microsoft made RAMCards, one of the first solid-state disks, for each the Apple II in addition to the IBM PC in the early Nineteen Eighties. Instead of non-volatile reminiscence like right this moment’s SSDs, nonetheless, these had been merely extra like reminiscence enlargement playing cards, including 16KB of RAM to an Apple II with 48KB already in place. (The model for the PC added as much as 256KB, in 64KB blocks, and shipped with RAMDrive software program which accessed the RAM as a disk.)
Google Books / InfoWorld
Microsoft additionally made the SoftCard, which was additionally attention-grabbing. It was a self-contained card with a Z80 microprocessor on it. Combining the RAMCard and SoftCard created a dual-microprocessor system for Apple with a whopping 56KB of RAM. PCs additionally received the SystemCard, which added the 256KB of RAM in addition to a print spooler and parallel printer interface.
Microsoft Mach 10 / Mach 20
On paper, the Microsoft Mach 10 and Mach 20 sound fairly cool. Instead of being compelled to reside with a IBM PC / PC XT’s 4.77MHz 8088 CPU, you could possibly swap it out and change it with a Mach 10 card that primarily upgraded it to a 9.54MHz 8088 CPU.
The Mach 20 launched in 1988 went a giant step additional. It gave you an 8MHz 80286 CPU as a substitute: a slower chip, however two generations forward! And with a mouse port! A socket for an 80287 math coprocessor! Run Windows 2.0 in normal mode! There was even a Memory Plus daughterboard permitting as much as 3.5 megabytes of RAM, and one other Disk Plus daughterboard which allowed you to attach a 5.25- or 3.5-inch floppy drive. As Microsoft’s Raymond Chen factors out, the Mach 20 value $495, however upgrading to a full-fledged IBM PC AT value $4,000 — an excellent deal by comparability.
Nevertheless, it flopped. InfoWorld’s in-depth assessment of the Mach 20 card was decidedly lukewarm. To increase gross sales, Microsoft even made a model of OS/2 particularly for the Mach 20. According to Chen, Microsoft offered a grand complete of 11 copies. Eight of them had been returned.
Microsoft / Timex Datalink
In 1994, Timex teamed up with Microsoft to launch the Timex Datalink watch, a water-resistant (even spaceproof!) digital watch that was worn by precise astronauts… in house! The Datalink was one of the first smartwatches, with knowledge optically transferred through a blinking CRT laptop monitor to the watch through an sensor. The course of was gradual, although (about 70 entries per minute, Wikipedia experiences) and couldn’t be dynamically up to date with out line-of-sight to the monitor.
As you may think, a scrolling line of textual content throughout a digital watch wasn’t that efficient, however followers however saved the line going for years. Probably one of the issues that killed them was a shift to LCD shows, which implies that you had to purchase a particular transmitter, too. While the Datalink made our listing of the worst tech merchandise ever, they predated Microsoft’s SPOT Watches.
Microsoft AspectWinder
The AspectWinder PC peripherals of the Nineties (together with joysticks, steering wheels, pedals, and extra) coincided with arguably the peak of the PC gaming period. You may play nearly any PC recreation, affordably, together with flight and house simulators like Wing Commander and racing video games utilizing the AspectWinder Force Feedback wheel and different peripherals.
Let’s not undersell this — these peripherals had been superior. Unfortunately, Microsoft exited the market in 2003, ceding the market to different producers. Not to knock any of them down, however they by no means had fairly the cachet of the AspectWinder model.
Microsoft EasyBall
In the late Nineties and early 2000s, tech corporations went by way of one of their bizarre phases, investing in child’s hardware for some purpose. (Remember the Intel Play QX3 microscope?)
Microsoft’s EasyBall debuted in 1997 as a huge trackball for youths, bundled with Freddi Fish and the Case of the Missing Kelp Seeds CD-ROM recreation for $54.95. Ninety-seven Computer City shops provided hands-on demonstrations of the software program at the “The EasyBall Adventure Zone with Freddi Fish.” The trackball even had a dual-input port for each a Microsoft Mouse and an EasyBall to be related concurrently, so that children and adults may work collectively.
Even although the EasyBall gained a quantity of awards, Microsoft had primarily pulled out of the trackball market by the mid-2000s. Today, Logitech and Kensington hold the trackball alive.
Microsoft SPOT Watches
Who may probably want a related smartwatch that might obtain climate forecasts, customized information, and Outlook calendar reminders? In 2003, this was an actual query. Today, the Smart Personal Objects Technology (SPOT) service was means forward of its time.
Microsoft
Technically, SPOT watches had been manufactured by Fossil and Suunto, not Microsoft, however they had been closely promoted by Microsoft as the subsequent huge factor in shopper electronics. They used RF communication to transmit knowledge, however the actual killer is that Microsoft wished to cost a subscription for the MSN Direct service that powered the watches with reside knowledge. That helped kill no matter demand there was for SPOT Watches, as did a greater wi-fi medium: Wi-Fi.
Microsoft Kin
The 2010 Microsoft Kin was doomed from the begin. It was a related smartphone for social media that lacked social media connections, and that will solely “connect” each fifteen minutes or so. The Kin’s first opinions discovered all kinds of issues, from laggy typing to poor hardware to an egregious Verizon smartphone plan that was a necessity to make use of the cellphone correctly.
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Those opinions landed in May. By June, Microsoft had killed the Kin, after reportedly promoting simply 500 of them.
Microsoft Lumia / Windows Phone
In September 2013, Microsoft purchased Nokia’s gadget enterprise, launching Microsoft into supporting one more (in the end doomed) smartphone enterprise. After former Microsoft government after which Nokia CEO Stephen Elop handed on utilizing Android, Nokia adopted the Windows Mobile working system as a substitute. Phones like the Nokia Lumia Icon gave strategy to the Microsoft Lumia 640 and others.
Mark Hachman / IDG
There are nonetheless a legion of devoted followers (together with me) who liked the Lumia line for its improbable picture sensors, whose coloration constancy outperformed competing telephones for a number of product generations. But Microsoft was unable to keep up momentum for both Lumia or a small ecosystem of failed Windows Mobile enterprise telephones. By 2019, the Windows Phone platform was formally dead.
Microsoft Zune
The short-lived Microsoft Zune digital music participant started in 2006 and eventually resulted in 2009, when Microsoft stopped producing new units. Zune by no means made a lot headway in opposition to the Apple iPod. Microsoft, although, gave the Zune’s companies a beneficiant seven years extra earlier than lastly pulling the plug…for the now defunct Groove Music. Oh effectively.
Microsoft
The Zune, nonetheless, grew to become so satirically iconic that it even options in Microsoft’s third Guardians of the Galaxy film, the place Star-Lord’s saved music has moved from tape to digital. Microsoft embraced the development by redesigning Zune.internet, which features a film clip to indicate that sure, the Zune continues to be cool.
Microsoft Band
Another product that feels now prefer it was forward of its time, the Microsoft Band smartwatch did many of the issues trendy health bands now do, however again in 2015: GPS, UV sensing, sleep sensing, monitoring, stair monitoring through a barometer, and extra.
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But the Microsoft Band and Band 2 by no means actually had the backing of Microsoft, and the strong Microsoft Band 2 was killed only a yr after launch. At least Microsoft provided refunds for anybody who had purchased one.
Microsoft Wireless hardware
Microsoft eked out a small lineup of wi-fi hardware between 2002 and 2004, together with the Wireless Base Station (MN-500) as half of its Microsoft Broadband Networking lineup. Wikipedia experiences that Microsoft was truly second in the U.S. shopper router market throughout that point, however couldn’t make the change from 802.11b to 802.11g quick sufficient.
That’s a fast hook for a prime product, however Microsoft has by no means had an excellent dedication to hardware except it may be a chronic, worthwhile success.
Microsoft Kinect
Microsoft launched the Microsoft Kinect for the Xbox 360 in 2010, competing with Nintendo’s Wii with a peripheral that merely acknowledged person actions by way of picture recognition. Kinect proved to be successful till the launch of the Xbox One, when Microsoft made the peripheral necessary. Users out of the blue revolted, and Microsoft relented.
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Still, by then the harm was accomplished, and customers didn’t wish to purchase an costly console and a peripheral. Kinect help was then dumped as a backwards-compatibility characteristic, too, till Kinect was lastly killed in 2017.
Even although there have been some odd prices levied in opposition to it (was the Kinect racist?) the Kinect ought to be acknowledged for what it will definitely gave rise to: Windows Hello and Windows Hello biometric webcams. (The Kinect additionally failed as a PC peripheral, too.) Facial recognition is now half of our every day life, and Kinect helped convey it about.
Microsoft HoloLens (?)
In January 2015, Microsoft invited the press to Redmond to launch the HoloLens, the finest shopper demonstration I’ve ever seen. Participants rewired reside mild switches with a distant assistant related through a Skype overlay, “walked” on Mars, and performed Minecraft on a espresso desk. It was mindblowing. And PCWorld was the first to get an uncensored hands-on with the HoloLens, too.
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Unfortunately, the HoloLens by no means went anyplace. It was with a sense of unhappiness that I wrote our HoloLens retro assessment in 2019, taking part in RoboRaid in a abandoned workplace after hours.
The HoloLens 2 launched as a enterprise (?!) gadget, which meant that it primarily disappeared from public view. Now, who is aware of? The HoloLens 3 may be dead, the HoloLens by-product for the U.S. Army appears to be stalled, and Alex Kipman, the father of the HoloLens, departed Microsoft after experiences of inappropriate conduct. The HoloLens may not be formally dead, but it surely’s being fitted for a coffin regardless.
Believe it or not, that’s not all of Microsoft’s successes and failures in the hardware market! For much more (a speaker system? a fingerprint reader? a cordless cellphone?), see our earlier story on the good, dangerous and ugly of Microsoft hardware.
…. to be continued
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