Where Are They Now?

25 Computer Products That Refuse to Die

By Harry McCracken, Technologizer
These tech products and services may be forgotten, but they're far from gone. How have these geezers managed to hang on for so long?
Old computer products, like old soldiers, never die. They stay on the market -- even though they havent been updated in eons. Or their
names get slapped on new products that are available only outside the U.S. Or obsessive fans refuse to accept that theyre obsolete -- long
after the rest of the world has moved on.
For this story -- which I hereby dedicate to Richard Lamparski, whose Whatever Became of? books I loved as a kid -- I checked in on the
whereabouts of 25 famous technology products, dating back to the 1970s. Some are specific hardware and software classics; some are
services that once had millions of subscribers; and some are entire categories of stuff that were once omnipresent. I focused on items that
remain extant -- if extant means that they remain for sale, in one way or another -- and didnt address products that, while no longer
blockbusters, retain a reasonably robust U.S. presence (such as AOL and WordPerfect).
If youre like me, you will be pleasantly surprised to learn that some of these products are still with us at all -- and will be saddened by the
fates of others. Hey, they may all be inanimate objects, but they meant a lot to some of us back in the day.
Hardware holdouts
Dot-matrix printers
What they were: The printer you probably owned if you had a PC in the house any time from the late 1970s until the early to mid-1990s.
Models like the Epson FX-80 and the Panasonic KX-P1124 were noisy and slow, and the best output they could muster was the optimistically
named near letter quality. But they were affordable, versatile and built like tanks.
What happened: Beginning in the early 1990s, inkjet printers from HP, Epson and Canon started to get pretty good -- their output came far
closer to rivaling that of a laser printer than dot-matrix ever could. And then, in the mid-1990s, inkjet makers added something that killed the
mass-market dot-matrix printer almost instantly: really good color. (I still remember having my socks knocked off by the original Epson Stylus
Color when I saw it at the Consumer Electronics Show in 1994.) There was simply no comparison between even the best dot-matrix printer
and a color inkjet.
Current whereabouts: Nobody ever thinks about dot-matrix printers anymore, but they havent gone away -- my local Office Depot still
stocks them, in fact. Thats because they have at least two valuable features inkjet and laser models cant match: Because the dot-matrix
printhead hits the paper with a hard whack, theyre perfect for printing multiple-part forms, and their use of tractor-feed mechanisms rather
than dinky trays lets them print thousands of pages without a paper refill. Consequently, small businesses everywhere refuse to give them up.
It wont startle me if there are still Epsons productively hammering out invoices and receipts a couple of decades from now, assuming we still
use paper at all.
Hayes modems
What they were: Dial-up modems from the company whose founder, Dennis Hayes, essentially invented the PC modem in the 1970s. The
commands he devised became such a standard that all dial-up modems use them to this day. Hayes dominated the modem business for
years -- it was as synonymous with the product category it pioneered as any tech company before or since.
What happened: Well, dial-up modems dont matter as much as they once did, in case you hadnt noticed. But Hayes decline and fall dates
to well before the death of dial-up: The company stubbornly kept prices high even in the face of much cheaper competition, and thought its
future lay in making ISDN modems, a market that never took off. It declared bankruptcy in 1994 and again in 1998, and was liquidated in
1999.
Current whereabouts: In 1999, Zoom Telephonics -- the company whose dirt-cheap modems played a major role in crushing Hayes --
bought the Hayes name. It continues to market a few Hayes-branded modems. But its a pretty obscure fate for a once-mighty brand -- I
didnt know it was still extant at all until I checked.
MiniDisc
What it was: Sonys format for pint-sized recordable audio discs, introduced in 1992. The idea was that it combined the best qualities of
compact discs and cassette tapes into one high-quality, portable package that could contain up to 80 minutes of music.
What happened: MiniDisc found some fans -- it was popular in Asia and among musicians. But it never gained much support from the
music industry, so few prerecorded albums were available. And within a few years of its introduction, it found itself competing with digital
downloads. While Sony introduced NetMD, a MiniDisc variant that supported MP3, the company made it remarkably unappealing by adding
copy protection to your tracks as you transferred them to disc. Why would you choose NetMD when a multitude of players, such as those
from Diamond and Creative, let MP3s be MP3s? Good question!
Current whereabouts: In 2004, Sony upgraded the MiniDisc format with Hi-MD, a higher-capacity, more flexible standard that was
backwards-compatible with MiniDiscs. It garnered some admiration among audiophiles for the high quality of its recording capabilities. But as
of 2009, only one Hi-MD device remains in Sonys lineup, the MZ-M200. Its aimed at musicians and journalists who need to make recordings
on the go. The moment it disappears, we can officially declare MiniDisc dead.
Monochrome displays
What they were: The black-and-white CRT that most businesses and many homes used with computers from the 1970s through the late
1980s -- and they worked just fine, since most DOS applications made little use of color, and early Macs didnt support it at all.
What happened: Graphical user interfaces, multimedia and games made universal use of color inevitable, but it took a long time before it
truly conquered computing. Well into the 1990s, lots of folks who wouldnt dream of using a black-and-white display with a desktop PC still
toted monochrome notebooks. But today, even a $200 netbook has a perfectly respectable color display.
Current whereabouts: You dont want a monochrome display. But if you did, you wouldnt have trouble finding one -- even Dell still stocks
them. Theyre still out there in large quantities, being used for electronic cash registers and other unglamorous but important text-based
applications. And hey, monochrome is making its own unexpected sort of comeback: My brand-new Kindle 2 e-book reader has an E-Ink
screen that does 16 shades of gray, and nothing else.
Hercules
What it was: An extremely popular line of graphics cards for IBM PCs and compatibles. Hercules first appeared in 1982, the year after the
IBM PC was launched, and was known for its high-quality text; it was as synonymous with graphics in the 1980s as Creatives Sound Blaster
was with audio a decade later.
What happened: When fancy color graphics replaced Spartan text displays, Hercules continued to be a prominent brand for years, though it
never dominated as it did in the early years. But in 1998, it was bought out by competitor Elsa, which then went bankrupt and sold the
Hercules brand to French tech company Guillemot. (In researching this article, Ive come to the conclusion that one sale or merger is usually
bad news for a venerable brand, and a second one is usually near-fatal.) Guillemot continued to make cards under the Hercules name for
several years. But industry consolidation in the graphics biz was ongoing and brutal, and in 2004 it ceased production of them.
Current whereabouts: The Hercules name lives on, but in an array of tech gadgets that doesnt include graphics cards: Guillemot uses it
for notebooks, Wi-Fi and powerline networking gear, sound cards, speakers, iPod accessories, laptop bags and more. I wish them luck. But
its a little as if McDonald's stopped selling burgers to concentrate on tuna salad, Philly cheese steaks, BLTs and Reubens.
Personal digital assistants
What they were: The handy-dandy, pocketable gadgets that started as organizers in the early 1990s and blossomed into full-blown
computing devices, from the pioneering Apple Newton and Casio Zoomer to the enduringly popular Palm PalmPilot and Compaq iPaq lines.
What happened: By 2005 or so, stand-alone PDAs were rendered almost entirely superfluous by their close cousins known as smartphones,
which started out big and clunky but eventually did everything a PDA did, and a lot more. Despite occasional attempts to reinvent the PDA --
such as Palms ill-fated LifeDrive -- almost nobody chose to purchase and carry a phone and a PDA.
Current whereabouts: Im not sure when any manufacturer last released a new PDA, unless you want to count the iPod Touch as one.
(And come to think of it, I cant think of a strong argument against calling it a PDA.) HP, which acquired the iPaq line when it bought
Compaq, still sells four aging PDAs under the name. Palm, meanwhile, maintains an eerie ghost town of a handheld store, which still lists
three models but says theyre all sold out. Amazon still has Palm PDAs in stock, though, so theyre not quite dead. Yet.
Packard Bell
What it was: A PC manufacturer (named after a venerable but defunct radio company) that dominated the retail home PC market in the
early 1990s.
What happened: Numerous products in this article fell on hard times in part because of crummy business decisions by their owners, but no
other one did itself in so quickly and so self-destructively as Packard Bell. Its computers were cheap in part because they were terrible, and
backed by subpar customer support. When rivals such as Compaq started selling reasonable computers at reasonable prices through retail
stores, Packard Bell started to founder. The decision by NEC to take a controlling interest in Packard Bell in 1995 seemed bizarre even at the
time; in 2000, the last Packard Bells disappeared from U.S. store shelves.
Current whereabouts: Lots of places -- just not stateside. The brand name never died in Europe, and after a couple of further changes of
ownership, it ended up as an arm of Taiwanese PC giant Acer in 2008. It now makes laptops, desktops, displays, MP3 players and desktops.
And if it ever returns to the U.S. market, itll be a more impressive comeback than anything Paul Pee-Wee Herman Reubens has managed.
Amiga
What it was: A remarkable line of personal computers, introduced by home PC pioneer Commodore in 1985, that delivered powerful
multimedia and multitasking years before they became commonplace on PCs and Macs.
What happened: Well, you could fill a book with the details -- and hey, someone did. Commodore had superb technology, but did a terrible
job of developing and marketing it. You could argue that Amiga would have petered out no matter who owned it -- even Apple flirted with
death as DOS and then Windows overwhelmed other alternatives -- but Commodores decision-making sure didnt help. In 1994, it declared
bankruptcy and stopped making computers. The Amiga name went on to change hands at least four times over the next decade, sometimes
being used on hardware, sometimes being used on software and sometimes just disappearing.
Current whereabouts: Amiga Inc, the current owner of the Amiga name, uses it on middleware for set-top boxes as well as games and
other applications for cell phones (you can buy an Amiga tip calculator). It also says its still working on Amiga OS 4.0, a product so long in
the making that it, like Harlan Ellisons science-fiction anthology The Last Dangerous Visions, is best known for how long its been promised
without ever appearing. As a former Amiga fanatic, I hope it does ship someday -- theres no way a new Amiga OS wouldnt be cooler than
an Amiga tip calculator.
Floppy disks
What they were: A form of removable storage, in 3.5-, 5.25- and 8-inch variants, that started in the 1970s as a high-end alternative to
saving programs on audio cassettes, then segued into serving as a handy complement to hard drives.
What happened: Until the mid-1990s, floppies remained essential. But then the Internet came along and provided folks with file downloads
and attachments -- faster ways to accomplish tasks that had long been the floppy disks domain, without floppies 1.44MB capacity limitation.
(Higher-capacity floppies arrived at about the same time, but never caught on.) Much higher-capacity storage media like Zip disks and
recordable DVDs nudged floppies further towards irrelevancy. And USB drives -- which provide a gigabyte or more of storage for less than
what I paid for one 72KB floppy in the 1970s -- finished the job.
Current whereabouts: Floppy drives are no longer standard equipment, but they certainly havent vanished -- in fact, you may have a
computer or two around the house that sports one. New 3.5-inch drives and media remain readily available, and you might be able to find
5.25-inch ones if you hunt a bit. (8-inch floppies I cant help you with.) Which leaves only one question: Under what circumstances would you
opt for floppies over something like a $10 (or so) 4GB USB drive that holds 2750 times as much data?
Zip disks
What they were: Iomegas extremely useful, cleverly marketed high-capacity removable disks -- introduced back in 1994, when 100MB
qualified as high capacity. They were never as pervasive as floppies, but they must be the most popular, most loved proprietary disk format
of all time.
What happened: The same things that happened to floppy disks, only more slowly -- and complicated by the malfunction ominously known
as the click of death. When cheap CD burners made it easy to store 650MB on a low-cost disc that worked in nearly any computer, Zip started
to look less capacious and cost-efficient. And then USB drives -- which offered more storage than Zip and required no drive at all -- came out.
Along the way, Iomega launched new disk formats such as Jaz, PocketZip and Rev, but they failed to recapture the Zip magic.
Current whereabouts: Iomega seems to be doing fine as a manufacturer of storage products of all sorts. It still sells 250MB and 750MB Zip
drives, along with Zip media going all the way back to the original 100MB disks. I confess that I never owned a Zip drive myself -- but Ill still
feel a twinge of sadness when they finally go away.
Z80 microprocessor
What it was: The 8-bit microprocessor, dating to 1976, that powered an array of early personal computers, including the Radio Shack TRS-
80, the Osborne 1, the KayPro II, the Sinclair ZX80, the Exidy Sorcerer and many others. It was also inside Pac-Man arcade games and
ColecoVision game consoles.
What happened: Progress! Among the notable things about 1981s original IBM PC was its use of a powerful 16-bit CPU, the 8088. In time,
16-bit processors gave way to 32-bit ones, which have been superseded by 64-bit models like Intels Core 2 Duo and AMDs Phenom.
Current whereabouts: Everywhere -- but invisibly so. Its been more than a quarter-century since the chips time as a personal-computer
CPU ended, but it never stopped finding useful life in industrial equipment, office devices, consumer electronics and musical instruments.
Zilog, the Z80s inventor, still makes em. Anyone want to wager on whether the Core 2 Duo will still be around in 2042?
Software survivors
dBASE
What it was: The dominant PC database software from almost the moment it first appeared in 1980, and one of the best-known pieces of
productivity software, period; the flagship product of Ashton-Tate back when that company was arguably a better-known name in software
than Microsoft.
What happened: dBASE IV, mostly. That 1988 upgrade was late and buggy, and Ashton-Tate didnt move fast enough to fix it, ticking off
the loyal developers who had made dBASE a standard. The company also spent a lot of time suing competitors, which is never as productive
an investment of time and money as improving ones own products. In 1991, Borland bought Ashton-Tate for $439 million, and acquired
dBASE IVs bad luck along with it -- neither Borland nor dBASE fared well in subsequent years. And in 1992, Microsoft launched Access, a
database that might have slaughtered dBASE no matter what. But dBASE was on the mat before Access ever entered the ring.
Current whereabouts: In 1999, dBASE was sold again, and its new owner, DataBased Intelligence, continues to sell it to this day. (Its now
called dBASE Plus, as if dBASE IV had never existed.) The companys newsgroups are surprisingly active, showing that real people are still
using dBASE to do real work. Not bad for a product that most of us wrote off as a goner early in the first Clinton administration.
Netscape
What it was: The browser (formally known as Netscape Navigator for most of its life) and company that, beginning in 1994, jump-started
both the Web and the Internet economy.
What happened: Hoo boy. Microsoft, after not even bundling a browser with Windows 95 at first, decided to crush Netscape -- which it did
by bundling Internet Explorer with Windows, giving it away for free and, eventually, making it pretty good. (Along the way, a certain
governmental agency expressed its displeasure with some of the companys anti-Netscape tactics.) Netscape, meanwhile, went off on
tangents such as developing a communications suite that didnt amount to much and enterprise software that it eventually sold to Sun. The
company sold out to AOL in 1998; AOL had so little interest in the browser it bought that it continued to distribute IE as its primary one. An
ever-shrinking user base did continue to get new versions of Netscape, but in December 2007, AOL announced it was pulling the plug.
Current whereabouts: If youre an optimist, youll focus on one wonderful fact: Firefox, which is based on Mozilla code that originated as
an open-source version of Netscape, is a huge success. The Netscape name, however, is profoundly shopworn. In recent years, AOL has
slapped it on a budget ISP (which still exists but doesnt seem to be signing up new customers) and an imitation of Digg (now known as
Propeller). Today. its mostly just a slight variant on the AOL.com home page with the Netscape logo repeated endlessly in the background.
But did I mention that Firefox is doing great?
MS-DOS
What it was: The operating system that powered the original 1981 IBM PC. And then a bunch of clones of the original IBM PC. And then the
vast majority of the personal computers on the planet.
What happened: The simplistic answer: When Windows 95, the first version of Windows that didnt require DOS to run, came along, it
rendered DOS obsolete. (Eventually -- some people happily ran DOS and DOS applications for several years after Win 95 debuted.) More
thoughtful answer: The moment that the Mac brought graphical-user interfaces into the mainstream in 1985, it was the beginning of the end
of the drab, relentlessly text-based DOS.
Current whereabouts: DOS refuses to die. It seems to me that I still see it in use at small independent businesses such as antique stores
and dry cleaners -- the kind of outfits that dont bother to change something that still works, even if its a decade or two out of fashion. Its
the inspiration for FreeDOS, an open-source project with a thriving community. And Microsoft still offers MS-DOS 6.22 for download to
customers who subscribe to various volume-licensing plans. Why would the company bother if there werent people who still needed it?
Lotus 1-2-3
What it was: The worlds most popular spreadsheet -- the first killer app for the IBM PC, and the spreadsheet that replaced the original killer
app, VisiCalc. It was also the flagship program in Lotus SmartSuite, an office bundle that provided Microsoft Office with real competition in
the mid-1990s.
What happened: A variant on the fates that befell WordPerfect, Harvard Graphics and other major DOS productivity apps. Lotus thought
that IBMs OS/2 would replace DOS, so it focused its energies on that OS, then had to play catch-up when OS/2 went nowhere and Windows
caught on like crazy. Starting in the 1990s, it turned its attention to its Notes collaboration platform, and seemed less and less interested in
desktop applications -- especially after IBM bought Lotus in 1995. That gave Microsoft plenty of opportunity to make Excel competitive with 1-
2-3 and leverage its place in the Microsoft Office suite. By the late 1990s, 1-2-3 was a has-been; Lotus last upgraded it in 2002.
Current whereabouts: IBM still sells that 2002 version of 1-2-3, which it cheerfully calls the latest release. For $313, it throws in the
other SmartSuite apps as a bonus. But its so disinterested in the product that made Lotus a software giant that when it recently introduced
a new suite that includes a spreadsheet, it named that suite after a different old Lotus package -- Symphony.
PageMaker
What it was: Aldus groundbreaking desktop publishing application, launched in 1985. Along with Apples Macintosh and LaserWriter laser
printer, it made it possible for mere mortals to create professional-looking documents (as well as eyeball-searing monstrosities) for the first
time.
What happened: PageMakers decline was slow and multifaceted. As word processors gained respectable graphics capabilities, casual users
had less need for PageMaker, and QuarkXPress offered more sophisticated tools for professionals. Adobe, which had acquired Aldus in 1994,
lost interest in PageMaker and built its own publishing app, InDesign, from the ground up. In 2004, it announced that it would cease further
development of PageMaker.
Current whereabouts: Over at Adobes Web site, its still selling PageMaker 7.0, which dates to 2002. The price: $499. It touts it as the
ideal page layout program for business, education and small- and home-office professionals who want to create high-quality publications such
as brochures and newsletters. Which is a darned odd claim to make about a program thats incompatible with all current Macs (its an OS 9
application) and Windows Vista. Dig deeper and youll find Adobes real opinion of PageMaker, which is -- surprise! -- that you should use
InDesign instead.
After Dark
What it was: Berkeley Systems screensaver for Macs and PCs, introduced in 1989 and most famous for its iconic flying toasters. Ask anyone
to mention a specific screensaver, and the odds are 99.9999 percent that this is the one theyll mention. It spawned multiple sequels and
spinoffs such as neckties and boxer shorts.
What happened: Im not sure if I know, exactly, but I suspect the inclusion of fancy screensavers in the Mac OS and Windows and the
availability of gazillions of free ones didnt help the market for commercial screensavers. (I still treasure my autographed copy of Berkeley
Breatheds Opus 'n Bill screensaver, though -- it includes a scene in which Bill the Cat shoots down flying toasters, which prompted a lawsuit.)
Also, the theory that you needed a screensaver to prevent your monitor from burning in turned out to be hooey. Anyhow, Berkeley Systems
last After Dark outing was something called After Dark Games, in 1998; it wasnt even a screensaver.
Current whereabouts: Berkeley Systems is no more, but Infinisys, a Japanese company, sells a modern OS X version of After Dark. But not
too modern: It doesnt work on Intel Macs.
Harvard Graphics
What it was: The first popular presentation-graphics program, released back in 1986 when many of the slides it produced really did end up
as slides. For years, it was the flagship product of Software Publishing Corporation, which was forced to run disclaimers explaining that the
product had nothing to do with the university of the same name.
What happened: Harvard Graphics was far better than PowerPoint for a long time. Little by little, though, PowerPoint narrowed the gap. In
the 1990s, being a only little better than a Microsoft application was a recipe for disaster -- especially if your product was a standalone
application that competed against one that was part of Microsoft Office. In 1994, SPC laid off half its staff; in 1996, it merged with Allegro
New Media; in 1998, it released Harvard Graphics 98, its last major upgrade.
Current whereabouts: In 2001, British graphics software developer Serif acquired Harvard Graphics -- cheaply, Ill bet -- and has kept it
kept alive. But its on life support: Harvard Graphics 98 is still for sale, along with a few other variants. Theres no mention of when any of
them last got an upgrade, but the fact that Windows Vista isnt mentioned in their hardware requirements isnt a great sign. Nor is the the
lack of any reference to the Harvard line in the list of products on Serifs own site.
Sites, services and stores
AltaVista
What it was: A research project at legendary computer company Digital Equipment Corp. that became the first widely popular Web search
engine soon after its launch in December 1995.
What happened: Digital was a strange parent for a search engine, but it did a great job with AltaVista. In 1998, however, it was acquired
by Compaq -- also a strange parent for a search engine -- which tried to turn AltaVista from a search specialist into a Yahoo-like portal. In
2000, Compaq sold it to dot-com investment firm CMGI, which later sold it to Overture Services (the former GoTo.com). In 2003, Overture
itself was acquired by Yahoo. By then, AltaVista had lost most of its personality and its users -- and Google had grown into a behemoth by
being really good at the stuff that AltaVista had pioneered before there was a Google.
Current whereabouts: Theres still an AltaVista.com, but its traffic is minimal and it seems to be nothing more than a reskinned
doppelganger of part of Yahoo (compare this AltaVista query to this Yahoo one). The site that started as a great piece of technology from one
of the worlds great technology companies is now just a name. Sniff.
Webvan
What it was: A grocery-delivery dot-com service that was famous, at first, for the ambition of its plans, the enormous size of their expense,
and the impressive rsums of its management team. It was also pretty darn beloved by more than a few folks I know, who loved the
quality of its service.
What happened: Spending more than a billion dollars to build cutting-edge warehouses turned out to be an investment that couldnt
possibly pay off quickly enough. After a string of other questionable business decisions (when its CEO was ousted, his golden parachute
included a $375,000 payment -- annually, for life), Webvan declared bankruptcy in 2001.
Current whereabouts: I didnt realize until I began work on this story that Webvan.com still sells groceries -- but only nonperishable ones -
- as an outpost of the Amazon.com empire. Strangely, Amazon has another site, Amazon Fresh, which specializes in delivering stuff that is
perishable. Meanwhile, most Americans seem content to get their foodstuffs the old fashioned way, by trudging the aisles of a supermarket
with a cart.
CompuServe
What it was: The first online service. Starting in 1979, it offered message boards, news and information, e-commerce and other Weblike
features -- long before there was a Web, and even before there was an AOL.
What happened: Well, the rise of AOL in the early 1990s left CompuServe as the second-largest online service, which was probably a lot
less fun than being the biggest. Shortly thereafter, CompuServe had to deal with the Internet. Like other proprietary services, it became a not
-very-satisfying not-quite-an-ISP. And as consumers flooded the Web, CompuServes once-bustling message boards started to feel deserted.
In 1997, AOL bought CompuServe, and while CompuServes robust international network helped bolster AOLs infrastructure, the CompuServe
community dwindled away.
Current whereabouts: Like Netscape, CompuServe became a nameplate that AOL attaches to slightly embarrassing projects. Its now a
bargain-priced ISP and a half-hearted portal site; its boilerplate copy calls CompuServe a key brand and touts CompuServe 7.0 as the
newest version without mentioning that its eight years old. (Weirdly, CompuServes home page also carries the logo of Wow, a faux-AOL
that the company shuttered within months of its 1996 release -- I cant believe that anyone misses it or is looking for it.) For those of us who
were CompuServe users back when its user IDs consisted of lots of digits and a mysterious comma, its a depressing fate.
Prodigy
What it was: A joint venture of Sears Roebuck and IBM that launched an extremely consumery online service in 1990 -- a more mainstream
alternative to CompuServe before AOL became a phenomenon. Geeks sneered at it (some called it Stodigy), but it managed to sign up a
sizable number of users in an era when the typical American had never laid eyes on a modem.
What happened: Within a few years of Prodigys debut, the Internet made proprietary services like it (and CompuServe, Delphi, Genie, and,
eventually, AOL) look like antiques. Prodigy started adding Internet features, and in 1997 it relaunched itself as a full-blown ISP. (It also shut
down the original Prodigy service rather than fixing its Y2K bugs.) It did OK as an ISP, at least for awhile -- in 1998, it was the countrys
fourth largest. But in 2001, SBC (now AT&T) bought Prodigy and retired the brand name.
Current whereabouts: Down south! In Mexico, Telmex, the dominant telecommunications company, owns the Prodigy name and still uses
it. Here it is on a video site, and on a portal thats co-branded with MSN (!). And dont hold me to this, but I suspect that there are still some
stateside SBC customers who retain Prodigy.net e-mail addresses -- just as I maintained a Mindspring one for years after that ISP was
acquired by EarthLink.
VCR Plus+
What it was: Remember all those jokes about VCRs that permanently flashed 12:00? Starting in the early 1990s, the redundantly named
VCR Plus+ (which was built into VCRs and available as an add-on in the form of a special remote control) simplified programming a video
recorder by letting you punch in codes that appeared in TV listings in newspapers and TV Guide. (In fact, VCR Plus+ inventor Gemstar
Development bought TV Guide in 1999 for $9.7 billion.)
What happened: VCR Plus+s fortunes were dependent on the fortunes of the VCR. As the 1990s wore on, consumers spent less time
futzing with recording tapes at all, and more time renting and buying tapes -- and, eventually, renting and buying DVDs. By the end of the
decade, TiVo and ReplayTV allowed TV fans to record hours of shows without dealing with tapes at all. Meanwhile, Gemstar founder Henry
Yuen was fired after an accounting scandal -- and then went missing.
Current whereabouts: VCR Plus+ is now owned by Macrovision, a company more famous for technologies that prevent people from
recording entertainment than ones that help them do so. The codes are available on TVGuide.com and VCRPlus.com, and in newspaper TV
listings. (Of course, in an era of 500 channels and on-screen guides, newspaper TV listings are even more anachronistic than newspapers in
general.) But you know what? Im not sure whether anyones still making VCRs with VCRPlus+.
Circuit City
What it was: A chain of consumer-electronics superstores with roots that went back to 1949. For a time in the 1990s, it was the most high-
profile technology merchant in America.
What happened: Two words: Best and Buy. Plus misguided decisions like laying off experienced salespeople and replacing them with
cheaper, clueless newbies. Not to mention the fact that almost every major electronics retailer eventually falls on hard times and liquidates
itself -- it seems to go with the territory.
Current whereabouts: Up north! In the U.S., Circuit City is now a nationwide chain of large, empty storefronts, but its Canadian subsidiary,
The Source by Circuit City, remains a 750-store powerhouse. (Confusingly -- at least for us Yanks -- the chain is the former RadioShack
Canada.) Recently, Bell Canada agreed to buy The Source; it says itll keep the name, but Im guessing it wasnt referring to the by Circuit
City part. But even if it deletes it, Circuit City may not be utterly dead: The home page for its currently closed site says it hopes to restore
some sort of online presence.
Egghead Software
What it was: A nationwide chain of software stores with an odd name and an even odder mascot (Professor Egghead, an Albert Einstein-
lookalike anthropomorphic egg -- or was he a normal human cursed to live his life with an egg for a noggin?).
What happened: Like most tech retailers, Egghead eventually fell on hard times; in 1998, it shuttered its stores and went online only. In
2001 it declared bankruptcy and closed the site, too (bad publicity after hackers broke into its customer database apparently speeded its
demise).
Current whereabouts: Even after the business collapsed, the Egghead name was worth something -- $6.1 million, which is what
Amazon.com paid for it in 2001. The e-tailing giant continues to sell software at Egghead.com. Its basically the software section of Amazons
own site, but it does sport an Egghead logo, just in case any loyal customers are out there who arent aware that Egghead folded eight years
ago. Sadly, the professor is nowhere to be seen.
You may enjoy these other Technologizer stories that focus on the history of technology:
Then and now: A fast-forward tour of gadget history
Patentmania: The golden age of electronic games
The secret origins of Clippy: Microsoft's bizarre animated-character patents
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