Technologies and Products that Might Have Been More Successful

Some ideas never quite caught on, other, existing ones, were needlessly dropped in favor of flashier new ones and others were never even properly tried. Which ideas do you think could and should have done better?
 
I think the MiniDisc was an excellent idea that appeared at the wrong time. It didn't have enough time to unseat CDs before MP3 players started to appear.

Sony started pushing them in Japan in the early 90s but there doesn't ever seem to have been a concerted effort to market them elsewhere (I remember a friend of mine in Singapore somewhere in the 1999-2001 period having an MD player but he was the only one).
 
Colour TV. Okay, not caught on better, but earlier is quite possible, since it was actually demonstrated in 1944 by John Logie Baird. it was a 600-line system too compared with the 405 lines then in use in most of the country.
 
For much of the Western world and definitely the UK, I think DAB Radio will be seen to fall into this category.

I've had a digital radio for about ten years, and absolutely love the thing, but the real tipping point with radio technology is getting them into cars. Even now, many new cars don't have digital radios. With all smart phones having the ability to hold Gigs of your own music, most people now see little need for anything else in their car. At home, the digital television switch-over should have helped, but many never bother to use the radio channels on their television set. As it is, internet radio is overtaking DAB, so I think its missed the boat.

This may not be the case in other parts of the world, but it seems to be the case here.
 
I think the MiniDisc was an excellent idea that appeared at the wrong time. It didn't have enough time to unseat CDs before MP3 players started to appear.

Sony started pushing them in Japan in the early 90s but there doesn't ever seem to have been a concerted effort to market them elsewhere (I remember a friend of mine in Singapore somewhere in the 1999-2001 period having an MD player but he was the only one).
I like the idea. I always though the CD was too big for a walkman.

BTW how about those super compressed MP3 CDs that could hold a ton of stuff (only certain players could read them). Could you do that on a minidisc and have it work with the player?

Colour TV. Okay, not caught on better, but earlier is quite possible, since it was actually demonstrated in 1944 by John Logie Baird. it was a 600-line system too compared with the 405 lines then in use in most of the country.
So then that would have been superior?

For much of the Western world and definitely the UK, I think DAB Radio will be seen to fall into this category.

I've had a digital radio for about ten years, and absolutely love the thing, but the real tipping point with radio technology is getting them into cars. Even now, many new cars don't have digital radios. With all smart phones having the ability to hold Gigs of your own music, most people now see little need for anything else in their car. At home, the digital television switch-over should have helped, but many never bother to use the radio channels on their television set. As it is, internet radio is overtaking DAB, so I think its missed the boat.

This may not be the case in other parts of the world, but it seems to be the case here.

I've always wondered why there isn't digital radio and now I find out there is... in other countries. I think there could still be room for that technology. So what exactly is DAB like?
 
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So then that would have been superior?
To everything else in Europe for a decade afterwards, sure.

On another front, Steam turbine trains. Now sure, most were fairly limited and unreliable, but LMS Turbomotive seemed to have cracked at least some of the issues with the technology.

Airliners too, although like colour TV, it's more a case of 'later than it could have been'. The Russians started a service just before WW1, using aircraft designed by Igor Sikorsky, and for the time they were the height of luxury.
 
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To everything else in Europe for a decade afterwards, sure.

On another front, Steam turbine trains. Now sure, most were fairly limited and unreliable, but LMS Turbomotive seemed to have cracked at least some of the issues with the technology.

Airliners too, although like colour TV, it's more a case of 'later than it could have been'. The Russians started a service just before WW1, using aircraft designed by Igor Sikorsky, and for the time they were the height of luxury.

Yes, they do seem to have worked the bugs out of steam turbine trains. It looks like turbomotive was a good design. I haven't read up on locomotive designs in a while but my understanding is that the advantages of steam turbines were considerable at sustained speeds but that they struggled to deal with the frequently changing loads a locomotive would put on it as it slows, speeds up, stops, starts etc... Nevertheless, I imagine that steam turbine locomotives would have been superior in lines that covered long distances and stopped less. Would have been nice in, say, Australia.

On a related note, have you heard about the steam turbine-electric locomotive? Ge built two and they performed decently. The design was also were so effective at reusing condensed steam that it rarely had to fill up.
 
Just have to throw it out there. Dirigibles, Zeppelins and all the things us AH's love. I think they could be quite viable in the large scale shipping industry. Like the giant ocean shippers. Same thing but with Zeppelins. I think they would see large scale success more in Central Asia and South america With the rugged terrain.
 

Deleted member 6086

PDAs. They were before my time, but I don't think they were ever very commercially successful.

Had the NES and Master System not made it across the Pacific perhaps Atari could have been the one to lead the video game revival with the 7800. It would need a good game library, though.
 
I've always wondered why there isn't digital radio and now I find out there is... in other countries. I think there could still be room for that technology. So what exactly is DAB like?
I like it a lot. I'm not well-versed in the physics, but I assume there's little if any difference between it and digital television transmission. Much like the digital television before they turned the analogue signal off in the UK, there's a much greater variety of choice.

I've never lived anywhere with signal problems, and even took mine to some fairly remote spots when I was working on farms, and it always picked up what I wanted. Like the television, there's a slight delay when compared to FM or AM radio, but it's only noticeable if there's one of each on in the same house...

The problem is that they still don't appear to have got the motor industry on board. I know that there are no insurmountable technology problems, because I've seen one or two examples, but it seems (anecdotally) the vast majority of new cars in the UK still appear to come with only an FM/AM radio. If people get used to listening to digital radio stations when driving, they might go looking for it at home. As I said, I think smart phones and iPods in cars, and internet radio at home have closed the window in the UK.

Which country are you living in? If internet radio still isn't a 'thing', then digital radio has a chance in some parts of the world.
 

Driftless

Donor
Whatever replaces cell phone technology.

I live in the coulee country of rural Western Wisconsin. For all of the bazillion cell towers in the general area, there are still large gaps in coverage - in spite of what the cell companies brag about. We are hardly the only folks who contend with those limitations.

There will be something better
 
Oh the irony, vast areas of the so-called developed world where cell-phones are unreliable, whereas in the poorer parts they're all the rage.
 
Three-wheeled cars have never really gone away, they're still around in places, just not in high numbers. The stability issues are kind of a killer though.
 
I've always had a fondness for telephone newspapers. It's essentially the first form of electronic broadcasting, and could even handle stereo, in the 1880s! It's a real shame that it didn't really become widespread before the radio came about.
 
Can you still get those hovermow lawnmowers from the 1970s? They were supposedly based on the same technology that gave us hovercraft and were I believe going to be the great salvation of British industry and were shiped out to New Zealand by the shipload. Our neighbour Mr Green was the topic of some discusion when he bought one. This was 1970s New Zealand. What else was there to do ok.

Can you still get them? Just I havent seen or heard of one in years.
 
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