What is *YOUR* Biggest Retro-Computing Hardware Disappointment?

[Omega-TI]

What is YOUR biggest hardware purchase disappointment?

 

I'm sure we've all had them... something NEW and shiny came out, you were an early adopter and got stuck with a piece of hardware that essentially does NOTHING all because (1) few people bought them, or (2) people don't want to support it for various reasons.

 

What was it? What did you end up doing with it or do you still have it?

[Tanooki]

I was short on money back in the 90s and needed to badly upgrade so I went for the highest speed, yet not highest quality CPU I could get which meant a Celeron. The only up side to it was when it started to suck against the RAM and video I could supply to it, I did buy one that could get safely overclocked a good 100mhz or so if I remember right. Ultimately it maybe was a year to two tops after I had to do that so things ran nicely that it up and committed seppuku on itself and when it decided to gut itself it also blew out the motherboard, some(all?) the ram, the video too. The only thing that didn't go up in smoke was the hard drive and the SB16 that was in there. Damn thing even overclocked thanks to the lack of a good cache never ran stuff as nicely as it should have given the speed of the chip as it was a total gimp.

[jaybird3rd]

I'm not sure what would qualify as "retro-computing hardware" in this context, but if anything, I've found myself more disappointed by newer hardware, particularly in the mobile device category. It seems that I always end up picking the losers, which come and go so fast that it makes me reluctant to go anywhere near that market again. For instance, I finally overcame my reticence to invest in an iPad just in time to pick up a third-generation iPad—you know, the one that was on the market for only seven months before it was superseded.

 

Another example is the NVIDIA Shield device family, which was my first experience with the Android platform. I preordered the Shield Portable because I was intrigued with its potential for emulation: it had a decent processor and screen, and most importantly, built-in physical game controls. I thought that a company with NVIDIA's clout was ideally positioned to bring some much-needed standardization to Android as a gaming platform with the Shield line, but I guess the Portable was too strange for most people who couldn't see beyond its GameStream feature—I complained about this in a review that I posted a few years ago—and it eventually stopped getting updates and gradually faded away. NVIDIA doesn't seem to be making any Shield devices anymore (except for their set-top box, which isn't interesting to me); they've apparently decided to supply the technology for the Nintendo Switch instead.

 

As somebody who still enjoys 35-year-old computers and consoles, and who is used to hardware that spans decades, I guess I don't have the stomach for the rapid turnover of the mobile world. The idea of getting a new phone and tablet every year and having all the old ones piled up in a closet seems incredibly wasteful to me. The idea of developing for them is even more terrifying: Android in particular is in such a state of flux that the APIs and tools are constantly changing, and now there's even talk of a merger between Android and ChromeOS, which will mean a whole new wave of obsolescent hardware.

 

I'm tempted to just sell off the devices that I still have and stick with my cheap flip phone.

[JamesD]

If you are counting PCs... S3 Virge Graphics card.

[Keatah]

Well, I'm sure I'll catch flak for it. But the Amiga, the 1000, and to a lesser extent the 500. Both were majorly disappointing to me because I kept hearing about (from computer salesmen) and reading about (in magazines) how great the Amiga architecture was, how it was the last word in graphics and sound.

 

So I bought into the 1000, and it sat on my desktop, doing little and accomplishing nothing. I had it for a couple of weeks before I returned it to Farnsworth, minus $100 for a restocking fee. I bought some remote control cars and other stuff with the money. It was something like around 1200 or 1400 bucks.

 

A year or so later I got into the 500. And initially it sat on the floor in my bedroom. I, like a fool, had been blabbing about it to my buddies. And when the rubber hit the road and everyone wanted to come see the state-of-the-art arcade games and graphics, I had little to show except for a couple of non-interactive animations and what came with the Amiga Basic and WorkBench disks. Not very impressive. No arcade games to be found. No computer store stocked anything.

 

Later on they did stock some things. And I partly redeemed myself in the eyes of a few friends. But mostly it was a bust for game playing. Again the salespeople lied.

 

Personally, myself, I did discover PhotonPaint and how to play with hi-res pictures. I drew some porn and collected even more of it. I also drew some Sci-Fi stuff - which I still have saved today. It was a respectable intro to graphics and digitizing with Digi-View.

 

But overall, the system was sluggish and never lived up to the ideas swirling in my head. There was nothing to generate procedural graphics. And Jet and Flight Simulator II were marginally better than what was available on my 1MHz Apple II. So that was a flop.

 

Soon the PC and the 486 came into my sphere of awareness and that rig matched my expectations for something speedy and snappy. A fast hard disk, no more grinding floppies except on installation of new software. And as time went on the graphics kept getting better culminating with Duke 3D, Doom, Raptor, Whacky Wheels, and others. Even fractal rendering and astronomy software was available. And I didn't even have a hi-powered graphics card yet. Just a budget CL5422. And then there was PaintShop Pro. So yeh.. I had little use for the Amiga as the PC was proving superior in every respect, cost aside. But what good is cheap hardware if all it does is frustrate you?

 

Most people will complain and lay hate on me. Eh.. whatever.. Remember, it's not necessarily the hardware at fault, but how it was marketed, the expectations put in my head by that marketing.. That sort of thing.

 

---

 

As far as disappointing consoles? I would say the disappointments were minor and like a few bumps, but nothing to turn me away from the platform. Odyssey^2 adverts were getting wordy at times, but I took it for what it was worth. Astrocade was unreliable, but more than made up for it with real arcade sound once I got a working unit. There were of course many crap filler VCS games, but that wasn't a reflection on the console itself. The 5200, being a repackaged 8-bit 400/800 computer was disappointing, but yet, to a kid, there was some futurism and mystery surrounding the console and that kept in my sphere of interest. Intellivision had funky controls..

 

It was all small stuff. And more like quirks instead of bombing disappointments like the Amiga.

 

---

 

Now, as far as good experiences go. I'd have to say all the early 8-bit consoles. The Apple II, the Atari 400/800, and even the C64 impressed me with the sound in its port of Gyruss. The Apple II was a remarkable learning platform for all things techie and layperson alike. I had THE best of times with the VCS and Apple II. And the 400/800 had some good arcade-like ports. All around it was a good time that seemed to fade when 16-bit came on the market. And the magic wouldn't return till the early 90's with PC games.

[juansolo]

With hindsight, the ST. I finished school and took a summer job in a warehouse for 6 months to earn some cash to buy a computer I could use for gaming and for college. The choice in the UK at the time was ST or Amiga, the Amiga being more expensive and in the early days, a receiver of many disappointing ST ports. But my main driver was that Dungeon Master and Oids weren't available on the Amiga, DM took at least a year to port and Oids never happened. Anyhow I bought an ST and I used it for the usual stuff at the time, college work, BBS stuff and games. But as the Amiga got it's footing things very rapidly swapped around and the ST got a load of crappy Amiga ports and the Amiga became very much the dominant platform with all the best games. I ended up with one in the end, but it was at the end of it's life really. As it is now, the Amiga is still probably my favourite computer of all time, and my A1200 has pride of place on my desk next to my main daily computer. The ST, well I have one, but it's really just there for the handful of early games that run better on it than on the Amiga. (FWIW the ST and Amiga scene in Europe was HUGE. I know it wasn't the same elsewhere in the world).

 

Recently I owned an Xbox One for about 6 months. The biggest disappointment in all my computing/gaming history. It's just not a console. It has bugger all titles worth having that aren't available elsewhere. It's necessity to download every game, the disks being keys as far as I can tell, ruining it for long term use (they'll turn the servers off and essentially it'll become a brick) all just ruined it for me. As it was the 4 games it had that were exclusive that I wanted to play just weren't enough for me to justify keeping it.

 

My biggest surprise was the Wii U. After being told repeatedly it had no software and was a dead platform before it even really started, I've got more exclusive, quality games for that than I have for some much more highly lauded older kit. I really never understood the anti U propaganda. Indeed it's software library is now being praised as it's all ported to some pointless handheld thing with barely more than a tweak here and there.

Edited February 12, 2018 by juansolo

[Omega-TI]

Well, I'm sure I'll catch flak for it.

 

I would not worry about that! Sure, the truth can hurt the biased, but information can also be very useful to people, saving them money and trouble in the future. In the end the decision is theirs, but to me the biggest crime is intimidating others into being silent, usually for their own selfish interests.

[vidak]

To be honest, older tech seems better built and better functioning than anything new I've bought.

 

All my mobile phones have terrible bloated and buggy software, and poor battery life. I have never had a phone I really liked since smartphones became dominant. Autocorrect is terrible. Voice commands are spyware and are always listening to you and ruin conversations. Social media is a dumpster fire. The phones are physically poorly made for long term use. The web is poorly optimised for mobile devices... I can go on and on.

 

I *loved* my old 486, where I learned to code.

 

Hell I even loved my Dad's old Pentium 2.

 

One really annoying example of how terrible phones are is how difficult it actually is to send people files now. You can't send MP3s or short videos anymore. They all have to be embedded in soundcloud or youtube, with all their associated IP scanning.

 

I am very frustrated. I wish I had been born 20 or 10 years before I was.

[BassGuitari]

It wasn't retro, but the only time I ever really hated something about any new piece of hardware was when I got a new laptop for Christmas a few years ago and it was loaded with Windows 8. A free upgrade to 10 was available not long after and I jumped on it and while I don't like it a whole lot more, it's at least much more stable. Just wish Microsoft would quit trying to be Apple.

 

Otherwise, whatever quirks my systems happened to have, I was able to live with and make it work. I still think my best PC, in terms of reliability and utility, was my Pentium III HP Media Center system running Windows XP. That was my workhorse for a decade. I actually still have it and it still runs great. Given my druthers it would still be my workhorse, but it's just way too outdated now. But it had a good run!

 

My wife and I got a WiiU for Christmas from the inlaws a couple years back because she wanted Mario Maker. I wasn't disappointed because I knew it was a dumb, dying, undersupported platform, which is exactly what it turned out to be. I was more disappointed in my wife for not asking for a PS4 instead. We went into a GameStop a few weeks later to check out games for it (again, I already knew pickings would be slim), and sure enough, they had, like, four titles stocked for it, and a few used games. Anyway, the WiiU has been used exclusively as a Netflix box for more than a year. I actually forget sometimes you can actually do other stuff with it.

 

Now, if you want to talk about biggest computing software disappointments, that's easy: Aliens: Colonial Marines. I'm a die-hard fan of the Alien movies, and A:CM appeared to be the first modern, proper Aliens game--not Alien Vs. Predator, not Prometheus or any other that other spin-off bullshit, but Aliens--that would do the films justice. I had actually followed its development from the time it was supposed to have been a PlayStation 2 game. It was going be to faithful to the film series to the smallest details by people who were just as fanatical about the series as I was, it was going to fill in the story between Aliens and Alien 3, it was going to be epic.

 

I bought it on launch day. I still carry a switchblade with me at all times in case I ever bump into Randy Pitchford so I can stab him in the face.

[Flojomojo]

The biggest disappointment is me

 

I spent so much time fawning over magazines, store displays, and catalogs.

 

Now I can have anything I want, but I see the hollow core of most games ... and the deeper things that require time and attention? I lack the requisite time and attention to really appreciate them.

 

A big library, bookstore or record store used to fill me with excitement and joy, like Piglet. Now I just think, Eeyore-like, that I'll never get to enjoy even a tiny fraction of it.

[Omega-TI]

Now I just think, Eeyore-like, that I'll never get to enjoy even a tiny fraction of it.

 

Damn.... that's depressing! LIfe is what you make it and sometimes ya just gotta say F it, I'm gonna dive in and have some fun!

[Flojomojo]

Damn.... that's depressing! LIfe is what you make it and sometimes ya just gotta say F it, I'm gonna dive in and have some fun!

Spoken like a true Pooh Bear

[NE146]

5200 joysticks is the classic one when it comes to hardware for me. Do you realize how disappointing it was for a 12 year old to have a 5200 with games you want to play and your joysticks don't work properly to the point you can't even START any of your cartridges? Looking at the awesome games like Joust, or Space Dungeon, right on my table that I owned, and not being able to play them.. that was the cruelest phase of my gaming life. And what made it worse is receiving new games as gifts and then never being able to try it. That was sad man.

 

A christmas or two later I asked for, and got a Wico stick.. but then that was kind of useless as well since it still needed a keypad (which I could never find for sale). I could start some games though like Montezuma's Revenge.

 

Yeah later in life as I got older & wiser I was able to fix the start button and keypad for the most part.. but that was years later.

[Keatah]

That is also my beef with smartphones and tablets vs traditional PC. The ability to handle and transfer individual files. I've said it in other posts of mine - people are scared of "files" they freeze up faster than winderz on bonky hardware when confronted with them. Even something as plain as a video or picture file is a burden. Just even remembering you have them or where you put them is a mental feat of heroic proportions. And some just give the impression it's "not that important."

 

And modern-day developers are equally scared of enabling consumers to do anything with files.. they just don't do it.. No drag'n'drop, no easy transfer to removable devices.. It's like they're plugging a hole.. forcing you to go through their services.

 

I typically spend about 1/2 hour a month managing the family photography. A hole half-hour! An in-ordinate amount of time, I'm sure. Time that's wasted when a smartphone would deal away with it and somehow make it all easier. Yet, I've got instant access to photos from 10, 20, 50 or more years ago. I've yet to see the cloud match that performance and practicality.

 

And it's based on ideas and philosophies I learned with classic computers.

 

---

 

I went to a local competition the other day. And as the scores came in they'd get posted to a screen a minute or two after the individuls' performances. Some MILF had her smartphone set up and some app that delivered the scores 40 seconds faster than what us mere mortals without a "device" would see on the local in-house scoreboard!?!?!

 

Does the world have to operate that fast?

[Keatah]

The biggest disappointment is me

 

I spent so much time fawning over magazines, store displays, and catalogs.

 

Now I can have anything I want, but I see the hollow core of most games ... and the deeper things that require time and attention? I lack the requisite time and attention to really appreciate them.

 

A big library, bookstore or record store used to fill me with excitement and joy, like Piglet. Now I just think, Eeyore-like, that I'll never get to enjoy even a tiny fraction of it.

 

While I don't get hard-ons for record stores much, I still enjoy book stores and hobby stores. I still have time to enjoy the stuff as long as I'm a little selective. And I enjoy the ambiance of "just being there."

 

Remember those Computer Shopper magazines? 2x the size of a phone book? Those were great. And those were responsible for putting a positive light on what might otherwise be ho-hum vintage tech. Vintage tech that has been sitting in the garage and rotting away or otherwise being hauled to the e-cyclers. It was cool and "sophisticated" to see and read about Xenix 286 machines and stuff. Or read about some hi-powered VGA board or All-in-One expansion card.

 

I wish there were scans of these. And I wish I still had mine, but alas, I used them to wipe my ass. The savings on TP went toward getting my WaveBlaster daughtercard, or was it my 14.4 modem? Can't recall exactly. 1 CS magazine was like 6 or 7 rolls, and I think it was even cheaper.

[BassGuitari]

Does the world have to operate that fast?

 

Dunno, but you had me at "MILF."

[+-^CrossBow^-]

For me it would easily have been my Matrox Mystic 3D card. It was one of the first as I recall on the market that I could afford at the time. The few games that did support it like Mech Warrior 2 and Moto Racer looked great! But it was a proprietary 3D code and never really supported beyond the 6 months or so I remember it being out. It was replaced with an STB Velocity 128. That card turned out to be pretty awesome as I only got it initially for its DX support that most games were starting to come out with. When nVidia added Opengl support to the Riva 128 drivers, I was the only one of my friends I knew for a while who could play Quake without a Voodoo card 3D accelerated!

 

Other regrets would be when I finally basically gave away my original Adlib sound card. Had no idea that nearly 30 years later they would fetch the prices they do. I also sold a Turtle Beach Maui (My first wave table card) for like $50 in the mid 90s when I upgraded to my SCB-55. Not as hurt about that one...

 

However, to counter against Tanooki's story. I think one of my best purchases was my Celeron 300a rig that I had for a good 3 years as my main gaming PC. Ran that bad boy at stock 450mhz without any additional cooling or voltages needed and eventually gave it away to a relative when I upgraded to P4 north wood processor. That is how long I used that Celeron 300a for. All through the high end P2 and P3 era until the waning years of the P4. Solid processor and one of Intel's best.

Edited February 12, 2018 by -^Cro§Bow^-

[pacman000]

Discounting broken cartridges and scratched discs which wouldn't play...

 

Super Floppies - I never had one, but I expected a new floppy format to catch on. None did; now it's hard to find a PC that'll read the older disks. (Yes, flash drives are generally more durable.)

 

My Windows 95 Compaq Presario - I loved that PC, but the hard drive was too small. I kept running out of room.

 

Our PC-XT - Our family's 1st computer, as far as I know. I wasn't allowed to use it, which was disappointing.

 

My Coco 2 - I was so excited to find this! But when I got it home I realized someone had left it in their garage for far too long. Over many hot summers the case had melted and the power cord had dug a trench into the case. Needless to say the computer didn't work.

 

Lack of DOS and Win-16 compatibility on newer versions of Windows. Shoot, it's hard to run some Win-98 and 95 software too.

[Keatah]

Our PC-XT - Our family's 1st computer, as far as I know. I wasn't allowed to use it, which was disappointing.

 

What WAS it with PC-XT rigs? None of us could really play with it either. And people that had them never ever let anyone else so much as breathe in the same room.

 

I went over to a buddy's house and his dad had one set up. But we couldn't do a damned thing on it. We couldn't even go into the same room it was in. And no one was around to "supervise" us. So I didn't get to play anything except for like to SEE 5 minutes of Flight Simulator.

 

A short time later in highschool I had a "girlfriend" (she thought so) that had a really fat ass father. Balding, beard, cokebottle glasses. At least 500 pounds. Stereotypical HAM operator with all the requisite equipment and plaques and logs to brag about where he DX'ed. He was like this untouchable "god" sitting in the corner. All powerful. All controlling. You dare not interrupt his business. And you don't even think about looking at the computer. From what I gathered, it was, yup, a PC-XT.

 

And whenever I went over there he ALWAYS seemed to be sitting there, watching this (then) cryptic text float up the screen. Upon closer inspection I learned about Zip and packing and stuff like that. I swear, he'd sit there for like hours with sweat dripping on the floor. I learned he was "backing up" important stuff. And the operation was never to be interrupted, and he was never to be disturbed or bothered while it was going on lest he explode in scary unknown ways.

 

This same attitude was prevalent even in my own high school. I was not allowed into the computer lab because my math grades were not top-notch. Ok. While maybe not THE same attitude and reasoning, the result was the same - worthwhile computing power was still highly restricted from youngsters.

[JamesD]

If you are counting PCs... S3 Virge Graphics card.

FWIW, an employer was trying to set up a Linux box and the graphics card that came in that machine didn't have a Linux driver yet.

It did have an S3 Virge driver though and I was able to trade for a card several years newer.

 

[vidak]

That is also my beef with smartphones and tablets vs traditional PC. The ability to handle and transfer individual files. I've said it in other posts of mine - people are scared of "files" they freeze up faster than winderz on bonky hardware when confronted with them. Even something as plain as a video or picture file is a burden. Just even remembering you have them or where you put them is a mental feat of heroic proportions. And some just give the impression it's "not that important."

 

And modern-day developers are equally scared of enabling consumers to do anything with files.. they just don't do it.. No drag'n'drop, no easy transfer to removable devices.. It's like they're plugging a hole.. forcing you to go through their services.

 

I typically spend about 1/2 hour a month managing the family photography. A hole half-hour! An in-ordinate amount of time, I'm sure. Time that's wasted when a smartphone would deal away with it and somehow make it all easier. Yet, I've got instant access to photos from 10, 20, 50 or more years ago. I've yet to see the cloud match that performance and practicality.

 

And it's based on ideas and philosophies I learned with classic computers.

 

The philosophies of old computing are democratic philosophies.

 

Linux isn't perfect on this, but at least it tries - but what happened to the philosophy that everything had to be a file? A harddrive, a song, a config file (in plain text)... A fundamental freedom is taken away from us when things are no longer distributed in files. I don't really like RMS, but he's right when he says every single piece of media we watch or listen to should be able to be possessed by us as a file or as some physical medium. Netflix and Spotify are terrible for this - they take DOWN movies and music that don't turn a profit. You're not in control of the library of media.

 

Because the bosses give so little of a shit about actual FILES all USB sticks these days, even if they're 64GB, come formatted in FAT32. That is ridiculous. I wanted to watch the Despecialised Star Wars, so I had to spend time reformatting my USB so I could fit a file bigger than 4GB on it.

 

I'm so done with modern tech. What happened to computer literacy? What happened to looking for more efficient ways to do things?

 

I am right now in the process of downloading my Spotify streaming music library as MP3s so I can get off the platform. I have to wait 5-15 minutes for the program (I refuse to say "app") to authenticate itself with its magical mothership before I'm allowed to listen to any music.

[+OLD CS1]

 

I would not worry about that! Sure, the truth can hurt the biased, but information can also be very useful to people, saving them money and trouble in the future. In the end the decision is theirs, but to me the biggest crime is intimidating others into being silent, usually for their own selfish interests.

 

Hold your tongue. I sense much heresy in his post. The Amiga lords are not pleased

 

I actually find it a darn shame as my Amiga experience was quite the opposite.

[Keatah]

I disliked the Amiga back in the day, not because of the platform & hardware. But more so the ecosphere and the advertising surrounding it. It was a lousy experience. I won't sugarcoat that.

 

Today, however, it is much different. I enjoy it thoroughly through emulation with WinUAE. And I can possibly see myself getting a real A500 at some point in the future.

[Keatah]

Netflix and Spotify are terrible for this - they take DOWN movies and music that don't turn a profit. You're not in control of the library of media.

 

I'm so done with modern tech. What happened to computer literacy? What happened to looking for more efficient ways to do things?

 

I am right now in the process of downloading my Spotify streaming music library as MP3s so I can get off the platform. I have to wait 5-15 minutes for the program (I refuse to say "app") to authenticate itself with its magical mothership before I'm allowed to listen to any music.

 

I also refuse to say "app" and try to use the word "program" whenever possible. I may say Application though - to denote something like a word processor or spreadsheet.. something office/graphics related. And I use it as a category like Game or Utility.

 

I think the simple answer to why literacy has dropped and the quest for doing things efficiently is dead is because of commerce. Everyone seems hell bent on using tech to dig into other's wallets, whether it be black hats, developers of skinner games, or an online store making it easy to buy.

 

Once computers left the realm of the hobbyist and the laboratory things went downhill. I also say the "DotCom era" was the computer industry's equivalent to the early 80's videogame crash. You had thousands of startups making ridiculous products, and there were no rules in place to curtail the exuberance. They basically threw shit at the wall to see what'd stick.

[vidak]

I agree.