January 5, 2011 at 00:15Phantom Products (Vaporware) for 11 years. Article One - 1999
- Transfer
Entry of the translator.
“The future has already come” is almost a slogan of the present time. The dial on the phone smoothly gave way to WiFi on flights and HD games in the OnLive cloud, but the 2010 Tron movie looks no less fantastic than the 1982 Tron.
Science fiction writers have long come up with 80% of everything we need in technological utopia, the engineers are left with the job. Every year, the inflamed minds of programmers, designers, and sometimes, unfortunately, marketers and just scammers give dozens of revolutionary new products to the public for trial that take hold of our minds but do not always reach our pockets or tables. And every year, wired.com, based on the results of a readership, sums up the results of just such phantom products.
Some of them are still on the air. Others still sold in millions of copies. Still others remained only in the memory of oldfags and network archives. In these translations of articles over 11 years, we will try to recall the biggest names and titles of Vaporware.
In the yard on January 1, 2000, and while many are summing up the results of the past millennium, we modestly recall the ghost products of the past 1999.
Further translation.
They were not included in the list, but came close to it: Qark 4, Duke Nukem Forever, 64-bit chips from Intel and we could not help but pay special attention to Error 2000 and all the manifestations of hysteria around it.
10. Rewritable DVDs (DVD-RW). Many people spent 1999 waiting for a DVD that could be re-recorded.
“Hollywood's ears are at the thought of breaking into their frail protection scheme,” Paul Ratner writes in his letter. “They will sell the soul to the Devil, if only no one would release a copy machine for their films.”
9. Ideaworks3d's Vecta3D . Many of Wired’s Web design readers were not thrilled when the promised platform and toolkit for 3D applications on Macromedia's Flash never became a reality. “We still hear their cries of“ Where is it ?! ”wrote Brent Marshall.
8. High speed internet access. Many readers expressed dissatisfaction with the apparent lack of broadband Internet options such as cable, DSL or satellite in many parts of the world.
“Despite years of hype, we still have a long time to wait for the day when high-speed Internet will be available to most Americans,” said Gregory Wiener.
7. Games for Mac. Disappointments for fans on this field over the year were more than enough. So many projects have sunk into cyber-non-existence that it was decided to nominate the phenomenon as a whole, writes Den Wlodarski.
6. SDMI . The response of the music industry to the MP3 format, the Secure Digital Music Initiative format, has not yet appeared on the horizon. The initiative was launched a year ago, but it looks like we will have to wait as much before the RIAA breaks out with the specification of a format designed to defend digital music.
“At first it was a software API, then only a specification, now it's just recommendations,” writes Colin Hand. - May be enough?
Even when the RIAA finally released the specifications, MP3 proponents doubted that it would come to a full-fledged format.
5. Daikatana. It was first shown to us back in 1997, this long-awaited action adventure game from Ion Storm, or rather, from John Romero. In a rage, Tom Slag even demanded to award her immediately the first, second and third places on this list. Although they postponed it for only 2.5 years.
As Edward Jacobs said: “This toy is not the first year in the phantom hit parade, it is a well-deserved stone in your garden, Ion Storm.”
4. Diablo II. Another boiling unfinished building - a sequel to our favorite role-playing game Diablo from Blizzard. “They push the release date further and further - it's unheard of!” - writes John Trash. “I hope this game gets to me before senile paralysis,” said John Graziano.
3. Netscape's Communicator 5.0. Also known as “Mozilla," this browser was supposed to speed up our network surfing. Although he did not get the most votes, he generated the hottest passions. “The disappointment with the loss of Netscape cannot be expressed in words, it was our last hope for a free network,” writes Marlon Dyson.
“When it is finished, it will not change anything. Internet Explorer has become the de facto standard, ”said Nolan Hester.
Even Jamie Zawinski, a former Netscape chief developer, wrote to Wired that the delay was a burden on his heart: “The fact that Mozilla, also known as Netscape Navigator 5.0, never approached the release in 1999 caused me to leave ".
2. New Amiga. Users of the kind, but already very old Amiga spent the summer fidgeting waiting after the company Gateway, the last "dad" of Amiga, promised them a next-generation car that would crush the opposition like an ice rink. The hardware from Transmeta, the Linux-based OS and the brilliantly new software from Corel and Sun - with all this, the Amiga Multimedia Convergence Computer (MCC) was supposed to be the answer to the prayers of all Amiga fans.
By autumn, however, only smoke remained from the dream. Gateway fired Jim Kolas, Amiga’s talkative boss, and the news flow from the company’s main office dried up. And after and in general it was announced about the sudden demise of the project and the transfer of all resources to a new set-top box to the TV.
“Now it’s just a brand for a couple of java components for future Internet devices!” Ulf Tidstrand expressed his disgust.
1. Our winner is ... Promised in 1997, then in 1998, somewhere in 1999 and, finally, on February 17, our winner and multiple champion is Microsoft Windows 2000.
What can I say? His tragic story speaks for itself. Readers came to a quiet but unanimous agreement and voted for him even without much comment. “It's just a phantom,” said Larry Herbison.
“I no longer believe the words of the MC when it comes to announced release dates,” said Daniel Scheffler.
Some even expressed suspicion that the MC intentionally postponed Win2000 due to a 2000 error. "Did they want to polish their ever-buggy OS, or simply decided not to risk it and wait 1 January?" - reflects Scott Haight, ironically proposing to change the name of the OS to Windows 1900.
P.S. Topic-translation of the article from www.wired.com , a link to the original is attached.
“The future has already come” is almost a slogan of the present time. The dial on the phone smoothly gave way to WiFi on flights and HD games in the OnLive cloud, but the 2010 Tron movie looks no less fantastic than the 1982 Tron.
Science fiction writers have long come up with 80% of everything we need in technological utopia, the engineers are left with the job. Every year, the inflamed minds of programmers, designers, and sometimes, unfortunately, marketers and just scammers give dozens of revolutionary new products to the public for trial that take hold of our minds but do not always reach our pockets or tables. And every year, wired.com, based on the results of a readership, sums up the results of just such phantom products.
Some of them are still on the air. Others still sold in millions of copies. Still others remained only in the memory of oldfags and network archives. In these translations of articles over 11 years, we will try to recall the biggest names and titles of Vaporware.
In the yard on January 1, 2000, and while many are summing up the results of the past millennium, we modestly recall the ghost products of the past 1999.
Further translation.
They were not included in the list, but came close to it: Qark 4, Duke Nukem Forever, 64-bit chips from Intel and we could not help but pay special attention to Error 2000 and all the manifestations of hysteria around it.
10. Rewritable DVDs (DVD-RW). Many people spent 1999 waiting for a DVD that could be re-recorded.
“Hollywood's ears are at the thought of breaking into their frail protection scheme,” Paul Ratner writes in his letter. “They will sell the soul to the Devil, if only no one would release a copy machine for their films.”
9. Ideaworks3d's Vecta3D . Many of Wired’s Web design readers were not thrilled when the promised platform and toolkit for 3D applications on Macromedia's Flash never became a reality. “We still hear their cries of“ Where is it ?! ”wrote Brent Marshall.
8. High speed internet access. Many readers expressed dissatisfaction with the apparent lack of broadband Internet options such as cable, DSL or satellite in many parts of the world.
“Despite years of hype, we still have a long time to wait for the day when high-speed Internet will be available to most Americans,” said Gregory Wiener.
7. Games for Mac. Disappointments for fans on this field over the year were more than enough. So many projects have sunk into cyber-non-existence that it was decided to nominate the phenomenon as a whole, writes Den Wlodarski.
6. SDMI . The response of the music industry to the MP3 format, the Secure Digital Music Initiative format, has not yet appeared on the horizon. The initiative was launched a year ago, but it looks like we will have to wait as much before the RIAA breaks out with the specification of a format designed to defend digital music.
“At first it was a software API, then only a specification, now it's just recommendations,” writes Colin Hand. - May be enough?
Even when the RIAA finally released the specifications, MP3 proponents doubted that it would come to a full-fledged format.
5. Daikatana. It was first shown to us back in 1997, this long-awaited action adventure game from Ion Storm, or rather, from John Romero. In a rage, Tom Slag even demanded to award her immediately the first, second and third places on this list. Although they postponed it for only 2.5 years.
As Edward Jacobs said: “This toy is not the first year in the phantom hit parade, it is a well-deserved stone in your garden, Ion Storm.”
4. Diablo II. Another boiling unfinished building - a sequel to our favorite role-playing game Diablo from Blizzard. “They push the release date further and further - it's unheard of!” - writes John Trash. “I hope this game gets to me before senile paralysis,” said John Graziano.
3. Netscape's Communicator 5.0. Also known as “Mozilla," this browser was supposed to speed up our network surfing. Although he did not get the most votes, he generated the hottest passions. “The disappointment with the loss of Netscape cannot be expressed in words, it was our last hope for a free network,” writes Marlon Dyson.
“When it is finished, it will not change anything. Internet Explorer has become the de facto standard, ”said Nolan Hester.
Even Jamie Zawinski, a former Netscape chief developer, wrote to Wired that the delay was a burden on his heart: “The fact that Mozilla, also known as Netscape Navigator 5.0, never approached the release in 1999 caused me to leave ".
2. New Amiga. Users of the kind, but already very old Amiga spent the summer fidgeting waiting after the company Gateway, the last "dad" of Amiga, promised them a next-generation car that would crush the opposition like an ice rink. The hardware from Transmeta, the Linux-based OS and the brilliantly new software from Corel and Sun - with all this, the Amiga Multimedia Convergence Computer (MCC) was supposed to be the answer to the prayers of all Amiga fans.
By autumn, however, only smoke remained from the dream. Gateway fired Jim Kolas, Amiga’s talkative boss, and the news flow from the company’s main office dried up. And after and in general it was announced about the sudden demise of the project and the transfer of all resources to a new set-top box to the TV.
“Now it’s just a brand for a couple of java components for future Internet devices!” Ulf Tidstrand expressed his disgust.
1. Our winner is ... Promised in 1997, then in 1998, somewhere in 1999 and, finally, on February 17, our winner and multiple champion is Microsoft Windows 2000.
What can I say? His tragic story speaks for itself. Readers came to a quiet but unanimous agreement and voted for him even without much comment. “It's just a phantom,” said Larry Herbison.
“I no longer believe the words of the MC when it comes to announced release dates,” said Daniel Scheffler.
Some even expressed suspicion that the MC intentionally postponed Win2000 due to a 2000 error. "Did they want to polish their ever-buggy OS, or simply decided not to risk it and wait 1 January?" - reflects Scott Haight, ironically proposing to change the name of the OS to Windows 1900.
P.S. Topic-translation of the article from www.wired.com , a link to the original is attached.