The Most Ridiculously Awful Computers Ever Made

[pokerfan]

http://www.cracked.com/article/120_the-5-most-ridiculously-awful-computers-ever-made

[HopeHoops]

1. I can personally vouch for the Apple III - that was a fucking piece of shit!

I don't know what they were thinking, but the phrase "totally wrong" comes to mind. I had more problems with that fucker than anything else Apple has ever made.

[pokerfan]

2. I used a Lisa for a while which has to be the runner-up

Yeah, a $10K personal computer, that's the ticket. What does Jobs think we are, millionaires? The trade-in program was another joke. For $1500, one could trade in their Lisa/XL for a Macintosh. :wtf:

The RPN calculator was cool, though....

[reflection]

5. Oooo, I remember the Lisa.

And the only calculator I'll use to this day is RPN. They'll have to pry it from my cold, dead hands.

[rcrush]

3. Do any of them have the name Packard Bell?

[darkstar3]

8. +1 million!

[reflection]

4. I've used #4, #3 and #1

And it was nice to bring back a flood of memories from my childhood. Thanks!

:hi:

[reflection]

6. They forgot two.

The Texas Instruments TI-99 4A. I loved that thing!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Instruments_TI-99/4A

And the Commodore 64. I've still got one that's in pristine condition. Big heavy sonofagun.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_64

Ok, I'm done now. Sorry for the thread hijack...

[krispos42]

40. OMG, my uncle bought me a TI-99/4A back in the mid-80's

No peripherals, though... I did an awful lot of BASIC on that machine!



Later on I got a Commodore 64 with a floppy drive. That was when I really began playing computer games!

[TrogL]

7. My first job was writing code for Apple III

They worked fine except you had to drop them once in awhile to reseat the bad contracts on the memory board.

[Deja Q]

15. Due to overheating - assumiung your floppy didn't come out melted

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_III

:wow:

BAD design... (thank the marketing rather than the engineering dept., according to wikipedia)

[madinmaryland]

9. Try using a TRS-80 (aka Trash 80)

Piece of shit extraordinaire. Fucking 8.5" floppy disks.

[Brickbat]

14. We had a Trash 80 Color Computer. To save something, you recorded it on a cassette.

Lovely.

[MajorChode]

10. Hey, I had a Sinclair 1000

I even had the 16K Ram pack to go with it.

[JCMach1]

29. Me too!

Learned basic on that thing...

[armyowalgreens]

11. I've never used anything older than a Pentium pro.

[pokerfan]

13. My first computer

[Chan790]

12. I had an ADAM.

No lie, after they discontinued them, my father in his infinite wisdom decided to buy one at Caldor's for 75% off on clearance...on clearance because it, along with all the accessories, software and tapes, was being discontinued. I realize that is a redundant sentence, but it needed the emphasis.

Anytime you're thinking about buying a computer, if the sales guy is standing behind you saying "I totally wouldn't buy that, are you sure you want this? You realize that we don't accept returns on closeout merchandise, right?" AND it's being discontinued because it has a fatal engineering flaw that cannot be corrected or repaired...don't.

It was so bad that our favorite game to play on it was "Monkey Academy"...a game that combined the worst parts of the original Mario Bros. (a multi-level stage where you jumped from platform to platform trying to avoid the enemies while attempting to fulfill the stage objective.) and Kindergarten level mathematics. You literally had to run a stupid animated monkey around, avoid being hit by crabs and attempt to find the right answer to solve arithmetic problems.

[woo me with science]

22. I did, too.

Typed a thesis on it!

[Chan790]

23. See, that seems like a functional use for it.n/t

[woo me with science]

25. Well...

"You literally had to run a stupid animated monkey around, avoid being hit by crabs and attempt to find the right answer..."

The process actually felt very similar. :P

[MineralMan]

39. I had an original Mac

Bought it at a garage sale for $10. I found an app for it that simulated an aquarium with fish, so I made it into a lamp. The lamp hardware attached through the handle, and could be turned on separately from the Mac. Most of the time, though, I had the little aquarium going at all times. Finally, the power supply smoked itself. I'm thinking about finding another one and doing the same.

It is, by far, the best use to which that computer can be put.

[Deja Q]

16. I love how they bash the looks of all computers made in the 1980s...

Those designed kicked arse. (Still do)

[unpossibles]

38. Yeah, I had a couple of Atari computers and liked them for what they were

Well, except the Atari 400 with the awful chicklet keyboard.

[elana i am]

17. when i was a kid my dad got me

a radio shack TRS80. that would have been about 1983 or so. i remember having cartirdges you could plug in to play games, but if you really wanted to do anything with the computer you had to program it first. it made a better atari knock off than it did an actual computer. i don't think any of us ever did anything with it beyond playing popcorn or pong. maybe my dad played chess, which was pointless because the computer always won.



here's a photo of it with the code manual it came with.

[backwoodsbob]

21. love me some trs80

my belief is the TRS80 ushered in the pc days

[Dr Fate]

18. My dad bought a "Gorilla-Banana" Computer.

I remember that one of the phamplets had the slogan: "One Slick, Tough Banana."

At 12 years old, that was pretty funny. Crappy computer too.

All I could find on google was a reference to one of their printers...

[blogslut]

19. I hate you

Because I'm going to click on that link and then I will get stuck in the maze-like trap that is the Cracked site. I can never ever stop at just one article. I keep clicking all the damned associated links at the bottom.


See you guys in five hours!

[Capn Sunshine]

20. NO SHIT, I JUST GOT BACK

and I thought the Lounge was a timesuck...............

[av8rdave]

24. I would vote for any Windows computer after Windows 3.xx

Nothing but pieces of crap since.

[Chan790]

26. Yes, but...

it's possible to fix them with a little penguin friend of mine. OTOH, if one wastes one's money on one of the computers in the OP...one is screwn.

(I'd argue the same for any Apple product, but that flamewar has been fought to death and I don't think we need a rehash.)

[Deja Q]

27. I wish your penguin friend would quack at the good people of Adobe and Epson...

:cry:

[av8rdave]

28. I can't disagree with you. The reason for my $.02 on this is this:

I understood PCs (very, very well) up to and including 3.xx. I could easily troubleshoot them, and easily optimize them for my purposes. Once MS went to the non-DOS based OS, I was quickly in over my head. I feel now that their operating systems are convoluted, bloated and hog resources. That being said, I realize that if I had any real expertise I could probably do something about that, but I don't.

As far as the Apple thing goes, I've been a Mac user for almost a year now. For the way I use a computer, it's a great fit. The most telling thing was a couple of months ago when Mrs. av8rdave remarked that I was spending less than 20% of the time I used to with the computer any more. It's because I don't spend any time whatsoever troubleshooting/rebooting/reinstalling/yelling/wanting to throw machine out the window. I turn it on, do what I need to, and turn it off. What a concept.

Every computer user is different, with different needs, and I understand that there is no universal solution for everyone.

I do have to say...this thread is a GREAT trip down memory lane! I stared out with a Tandy 1000. That sucker came with a whopping 128 MB of RAM and a 5 1/4" floppy drive (no hard drive). When I doubled the RAM and added a 3 1/2" floppy drive, I was somebody!!!

[Deja Q]

30. Pre-Win95 wasn't half-bad... (updated)

Windows 3.x (16-bit) was still bloaty compared to competitors' offerings, but there was no registry - no "all eggs in one basket" mistake that's only gotten worse as time has gone by. Especially since the Vista project started - when it was said they re-started the project from scratch and half the pro9mised features removed, I winced... nmot to mention what WAS released in 2007...


If Microsoft did a better job of engineering, I wouldn't mind. But it's clearly been going downhill; the worst of which is the last 5 years. I don't care why, they just are.

Even server techs I work with at work are angry over the server products (Exchange w/Outlook client, SMS, et al...)


Check that, I just remembered windows 3.1's memory stack limitations; my idiot boss wondering why Windows kept getting 'out of memory' errors when task manager was showing plenty of memory available. Not the CONFIG.SYS "buffers" parameter, but Windows 3.1 had its own stacks - go over those and you couldn't do another damn thing.

Windows 3.x was garbage too...

Back in the day, people said "Nobody ever got fired for supporting Microsoft's products." (Little did they know, too...)

[billyclem]

31. All Hail the Z-80 based S-100 bus homebrew

Anyone else old/geek enough to have built Z-80/S-100 homebrew machines? Ah yes, 32-64K dynamic RAM, dual 8in floppys, 5Mb hard drive, 3 layer 512x384 graphic cards, paper tape reader/punch, etc. Computer bliss in a 19in rack mount space heater. At least we could make fun of the early Apples and everything else.

[pokerfan]

32. My first job was designing S-100 bus hardware

Specifically, video cards.

[kentauros]

33. I'd like to add the Bausch & Lomb CAD Mini-Computer

but I can't find anything but anecdotal info on it to do so.

I never owned one, but I did learn CAD for the first time on one. I didn't understand even then (late 80s, I think) why the college had bought such a system, but it did do a fair job of CAD, if exceptionally slowly. Here's the only bit of info I've been able to find on it, other than my memory of green CRT screens and 8" floppies ;)

Topic: Bausch & Lomb CADD
Posted: 21 April 2005 at 9:49pm

I'm an Architect that graduated college right when CAD systems were coming of age. Our first CAD system was a $100K Bausch & Lomb 4mhg mini computer. It was the slowest piece of JUNK that I've even seen. We never made a dime with it as it was far slower than any drafter we had at the time.... SO we had a $100K CAD system, with a $30K manager, who was being out drawn by a $24K drafter.

The company that sold us the system had shown us a scripted presentation that actually made it look as if the salesman was drawing a building, but in fact the software was simply running a script. It was an incredible act of deception, and several firms all jumped at the technology only to learn months later of what had happened. Given the legal strength of the manufacturer thoughts of litigation we soon dismissed.

After a few year we dumped the system and bought a 386 Compaq. We were able to continue to use the $12K HP pen plotter. I sold the remainder of the system for $25 to a guy that I'd attempted to GIVE IT TO. He refused to take it for free, so I took his money under the agreement that he would NEVER CALL ME. He kept his part of the deal.

I've tried finding some mention of this DOG system on the web, but no luck.

[JBoy]

34. Nothing beats the original Mac

With a second floppy drive you could conquer the world!

[HamdenRice]

35. So many! I worked for a firm whose biggest client was AT&T so we had to use theirs

They were not actually labeled AT&T, but NCR (used to be National Cash Register, and that's what they had the entire market for). So ATT bought NCR in order to get into PCs. They weren't the worst ever, but they were pretty bad. They went out of business iirc because of the badness of their pcs, ending 100 years of cash register domination.

I have mixed feelings about the IBM laptop of circa 1988. When most other companies had already moved to modern laptop construction, the IBM was a monster -- heavy clunky, w/ a tiny b/w flip up tiny screen. On the other hand, I took it to Africa for 2 years, traveled all over, charged the battery with my cigarette lighter outlet of my car, dropped it many times. It was indestructible, and I still have it in my attic.

[Odin2005]

36. LOL @ the AppleIII

:rofl:

[RebelOne]

37. I had an Apple IIE and it was a pretty good little computer.

I never had any problem with it in the 8 years I used it.