Well, enough of that. Here are ten technologies that don't deserve all those accolades. Join us as we stumble down memory lane and tip over a few sacred cows.
[ Computer de-evolution: Features that lost the evolutionary war ]
10. Vinyl Records (1948)
"Sure, vinyl records sound warmer than digital, whatever that means to you," says Troy Davis, CTO for coupon marketing site CoupSmart (and a graduate of the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music). "But that's because of low-level distortion inherent in the process of scraping vinyl to reproduce complex, high-frequency information, not some magical hippie goodness that comes from the forces of nature."
9. Segway PT (2001)
It was supposed to revolutionize personal transportation. Jeff Bezos was an early investor, and Steve Jobs allegedly predicted future cities would be designed around them. But when the first Segways rolled off the production lines, most of us uttered a collective "Huh?" Who uses them today? Tour guides, Google employees, mall cops (at least, the Hollywood version), and a handful of stubborn Segway devotees who've managed to rack up nearly 4 million miles on them... very, very slowly.
8. Apple Lisa 1 (1983)
"The Lisa is only noteworthy for being Mac-like before the Mac was released," notes Dave Farquhar, a network security engineer who writes The Silicon Underground blog. "It was unreliable, there was no software for it beyond what was shipped with it, and nobody bought it."
7. Amazon Kindle (2007)
6. CP/M (1973)
Before Windows there was DOS, and before DOS there was the Control Program for Microcomputers, or CP/M. (Before CP/M? Typewriters.) As the legend goes, had CP/M developer Gary Kildall of Digital Research Inc. not blown off a meeting with IBM about licensing a version of his OS in 1980, DRI might have ended up ruling the PC roost. Instead, Bill Gates and Paul Allen adapted a clone of CP/M for Big Blue, and the rest is history.
The problems with that story? 1. Kildall didn't actually blow off the meeting; and 2. CP/M wasn't really all that good, says Winn Schwartau, author of Information Warfare and chairman of smart phone security firm Mobile Active Defense.
"A number of my friends still run Kaypro CP/M machines because they're still fast and not cluttered up by endless DLLs and other crap," he says. "But I think CP/M was a kluge that fell far short from a usability standpoint."