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Products phantoms (Vaporware) for 11 years. Article One - 1999

Entry translator.
“The future has already come” - almost the slogan of the present time. The dial-up disk on the phone smoothly gave way to WiFi on flights and HD games in the OnLive cloud, but the Tron film of 2010 looks no less fantastic than the 1982 Tron.
Science fiction writers have long invented 80% of everything we need in technological utopia, the matter remains for the engineers. Every year, the inflamed minds of programmers, designers, and sometimes, unfortunately, marketers and simply scammers issue dozens of new revolutionary products to the public who take possession of our minds, but do not always reach our pockets or tables. And every year the site wired.com summarizes the results of such phantom products following a reader’s vote.
Some of them are still in the air. Others still sold millions of copies. Still others remain only in the memory of oldfags and network archives. In these translations of articles for 11 years, we will try to recall the loudest names and names of Vaporware.

In the courtyard on January 1, 2000, and while many are summing up the past millennium, we will modestly recall the ghost goods of the past 1999.

Next translation.

The list was not included, but it was very close to it: Qark 4, Duke Nukem Forever, 64-bit chips from Intel, and we could not but pay special attention to Error 2000 and all manifestations of hysteria around it.
10. Rewritable DVD (DVD-RW). Many people spent 1999 waiting for a DVD that could be dubbed.
“Hollywood on the ears stands at the thought of breaking into their frail protection scheme,” Paul Ratner writes in his letter. “They’ll sell their souls to the Devil, so long as no one releases a copy machine for their films.”
9. Ideaworks3d's Vecta3D . Many of the readers of Wired, who are engaged in WEB-design, were not thrilled when the promised platform and tools for 3D applications on Macromedia's Flash never became a reality. “We still hear their cries“ Where is it ?! ”, wrote Brent Marshall.
8. High-speed Internet access. Many readers complained about the apparent lack of broadband Internet connection options such as cable, DSL or satellite in many parts of the world.
“Despite the 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. Frustration for fans in this field for the year was more than. In cyber-non-existence, there have been so many projects 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 the same amount before the RIAA releases the format specification, 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 did release the specs, MP3 supporters doubted that it would be a full format.
5. Daikatana. For the first time we were shown it back in 1997, this long-awaited action adventure game from Ion Storm, or more precisely, from John Romero. In rage, Tom Slak even demanded that she be awarded the first, second and third places on this list. Although it was postponed for only 2.5 years.
As Edward Jacobs said: "This toy is not the first year in the hit parade of phantoms, it is a well-deserved stone in your garden, Ion Storm."
4. Diablo II . Another boiling unfinished - 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 Thrush. “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. Though he didn’t get the most votes, he generated the hottest passions. “Disappointment at the loss of Netscape cannot be put into 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 Zavinsky, the former chief developer at Netscape, wrote Wired that this delay was a heavy burden on his heart: “The fact that Mozilla, also known as Netscape Navigator 5.0, did not come to release in 1999, caused me to leave ".
2. New Amiga. Users of the good, but very old Amiga spent the summer fidgeting in anticipation, after the Gateway company, the last “papa” of the Amiga, promised them a next-generation car that would crush the opposition like a skating rink. The hardware of Transmeta, OS based on Linux and brilliantly new software from Corel and Sun - with all this Amiga Multimedia Convergence Computer (MCC) was to be the answer to the prayers of all Amiga fans.
By the fall, however, only smoke remained from the dream. Gateway fired Jim Kolas, the talkative Amiga boss, and the news flow from the company's headquarters dried up. And after all, it was announced that the project was about to die and transfer all resources to a new set-top box.
“Now this is 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 repeated champion - Microsoft Windows 2000.
What can I say? His tragic story speaks for itself. Readers came to a quiet but unanimous agreement and voted for it even without much comment. “This is just a phantom unit,” said Larry Gerbison.
“I no longer believe the MC’s words when it comes to announced release dates,” said Daniel Shefler.
Some even expressed suspicion that the MS deliberately postponed Win2000 due to an error of 2000. "Did they want to polish their always buggy OS, or simply decided not to risk and wait out January 1?" Scot Heit, who ironically suggested changing the OS name to Windows 1900, thinks.
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P.S. A translation of the article from www.wired.com , link to the original attached.

Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/111182/


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