Inventions that never made it

[Mav]

by mini disc you mean the cd system that has the discs about 1/3 the size of a normal cd/dvd?

 

if so they did work out, I mean look how well Nintendo has put them to use. Debates on the sucess of the Gamecube vs other consoles aside, it used minidiscs rather well. unless those are a completely different format than minidiscs..

[Beawulf]

by mini disc you mean the cd system that has the discs about 1/3 the size of a normal cd/dvd?

 

if so they did work out, I mean look how well Nintendo has put them to use. Debates on the sucess of the Gamecube vs other consoles aside, it used minidiscs rather well. unless those are a completely different format than minidiscs..

 

Nah, by minidisk we mean MD

 

 

edit: Had they come out a decade earlier they would have done much better. But with "hard drive" based systems (mp3 players etc) obviously around the corner most people didnt see the point in investing in half measure technology.

[magestorm]

Yes they are. The minidisc came out just at the wrong time. Sony was trying to avoid leaping into the CD-R war with the RIAA, and came out with the minidisc. However, their gamble lost, and the CD-R became avalible to the public.

 

Had things gone differently, the minidisc would have definitely taken off.

[ceedj]

Had they come out a decade earlier they would have done much better. But with "hard drive" based systems (mp3 players etc) obviously around the corner most people didnt see the point in investing in half measure technology.

 

Funny thing is, MD's WERE out about ten years earlier, pressed into use by Roland's sampling keyboards in the mid to late 80's. I think they kind of faded a bit before Sony brought them back.

 

My sister just got a MD player with a 1GB disc. Nice, if slow little unit.

[magestorm]

For entertainment tech, here's what I feel needs to be looked at in order for it to succeed:

 

1) It must offer a significant advancement over current technology. Just adding a marginal improvement won't make it take off.

 

2) It needs to be "backwards compatable". This means if someone currently has a collection, then they need to ensure the old media still works in the new machines. Look at the portable game market. Ever wonder why Gameboy has endured for so long? It's because every new Gameboy is designed to play all the old games.

 

3) It has to have features that are revolutionary. Without that kind of innovation, people aren't going to go for it.

 

4) Needs to be marketed correctly. Look at the VHS/Betamax war. While Betamax was the superior technology, VHS aggressively marketed their product and won the war.

 

This is why so many entertainment products fail. Minidisc players would not play current collections of CDs. They were revolutionary, but failed to offer backwards compatability. It was not revolutionary enough to break through the CD barrier, and was not marketed to a broad audience. Because of these, it was not successful.

[Mav]

2) It needs to be "backwards compatable". This means if someone currently has a collection, then they need to ensure the old media still works in the new machines. Look at the portable game market. Ever wonder why Gameboy has endured for so long? It's because every new Gameboy is designed to play all the old games.

 

This is going to be one of the newbies questions ever (Fen will take me to the coals for this one) but, does that include the GBA/SP/DS being backwards compatible for the Gameboy and Gameboy Color cartridges? I know the SP is just a different style GBA. And the DS can play GBA/SP games (as will the DS Lite when it's released). But I got quite a few old GB carts laying around I wouldn't mind wasting time on.

[magestorm]

Yup. If you have the Nintendo DS, you can play ANYTHING that has the name gameboy on it. That includes the original black and white one, color, advanced, and of course, ds. This is why Nintendo won out on the handheld war with the sega and atari handhelds. Yes, both of those were a much better product, but due to the fact that the nintendo didn't require you to buy all new games for the new system, they were able to capture the market.

 

As a matter of fact, I know Zelda Seasons and Time for the GB Color has special features and rings that can ONLY be accessed on GBA or GBDS.

[Tigerplayer]

For entertainment tech, here's what I feel needs to be looked at in order for it to succeed:

 

1) It must offer a significant advancement over current technology. Just adding a marginal improvement won't make it take off.

 

2) It needs to be "backwards compatable". This means if someone currently has a collection, then they need to ensure the old media still works in the new machines. Look at the portable game market. Ever wonder why Gameboy has endured for so long? It's because every new Gameboy is designed to play all the old games.

 

3) It has to have features that are revolutionary. Without that kind of innovation, people aren't going to go for it.

 

 

4) Needs to be marketed correctly. Look at the VHS/Betamax war. While Betamax was the superior technology, VHS aggressively marketed their product and won the war.

 

This is why so many entertainment products fail. Minidisc players would not play current collections of CDs. They were revolutionary, but failed to offer backwards compatability. It was not revolutionary enough to break through the CD barrier, and was not marketed to a broad audience. Because of these, it was not successful.

 

1) that's right, for those who like it simple.. imagine the FIFA games, each year just new graphics, players and teams. no new game really.

 

2) the HD-DVD and blu ray have a problem here. They both use blue or violet lasers to read data. At least a dual-laser system is needed here, a blue laser and a red one seperately, or both in a special laser head that can change between the red and blue laser.

 

3) see point 1

 

4) This isn't always true. Look at the Apple/MS war. Steve Jobs was a very agressive manager in the 80's, one of the reasons the apple computers were so popular back then. He even got the first computer with a GUI on the market, but today nearly everybody runs windows

 

 

 

BTW. the GBA SP is not backwards compatible, at least not the european version

[GorunNova]

Yup. If you have the Nintendo DS, you can play ANYTHING that has the name gameboy on it. That includes the original black and white one, color, advanced, and of course, ds. This is why Nintendo won out on the handheld war with the sega and atari handhelds. Yes, both of those were a much better product, but due to the fact that the nintendo didn't require you to buy all new games for the new system, they were able to capture the market.

 

As a matter of fact, I know Zelda Seasons and Time for the GB Color has special features and rings that can ONLY be accessed on GBA or GBDS.

That's strange... I was pretty certain that black-and-white GB games did NOT work on the Nintendo DS... just GBA games. Have you actually -used- GB games on the DS? I don't have any original GB games handy, so I can't actually try it on my own DS, but the instructions that come with it are pretty clear that anything before the GBA won't run on it, and almost every site that talks about the DS warns you not to throw out / sell your GBA because it doesn't support Game Boy or Game Boy Color games.

 

Edit: Also, the DS doesn't support linking of GBA games...

[magestorm]

Currently, I own a GBA, which does run all older games. From the forums I have read, this feature is supposed to be in the DS. The connection is the exact same, just more information as you get to the modern game boy games.

[Tigerplayer]

GBA runs all the old games (dosn't have one myself though) once played pokemon red on my friend's GBA.

 

The reason that the DS can't play old GB or GBC games is that they are pretty much obsolete, even though there is still a small market for them (it is obviously not large enough) for the older games.

 

The reason is that (like windows x64 not being able to run 16-bit programs) the DS uses a different method of processing the graphics. This method is not compatible with the older GB/GBC rendering method. The GBA rendering method is more like a hi-res GBC mode that can use a higher resolution, but it has the ability to switch back to lo-res GB/GBC rendering. The DS uses its graphic processor together with some kind of bridge chip to display GBA graphics, but to display GB/GBC graphics it would require a larger chip, and therefore require not only a redesign of the cartridge interface, but also that the DS had to become larger (as if it is not large enough already) because of the extra amount of circuitry needed.

 

I don't know much about the hardware design of the DS, but at least I came forth with a theory of how it might work

 

IMO Nintendo designed the DS on the basis that the older GB/GBC games were obsolete but the GBA games still held a large market and gave the DS compatability for those.

 

My friend tested his DS with and old GB-non-color game, and it didn't work, as well as a GBC game he borrowed from me, that (guess what) didn't work as well.

Though I heard of a kind of mod-chip or firmware upgrade that made the DS able to play older GB/GBC games, this feat should be built in to all new DSs, and it should work by utilizing the GBA bridge chip for oldskool GB/GBC rendering

[VonHelton]

what ever happened to the flying car i could have sworn that they were showing models of it in the early 1990's...

 

 

guess it didn't take of litterrally!!!

 

Wrong!

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/science/nature/354129.stm

 

:o

 

 

[Tenebrae]

Ultimate abortive technology:

 

Advance Photo System.

 

APS must have hit the shops 12 to 18 months before digital cameras basically became the norm. Never stood a chance.

[Tigerplayer]

Since my last post I have gone through some heavy research about gameboy and DS hardware.

 

In the original gameboy, the infamous Z80 CPU was used (also in pocket and light models) to create graphics and sound.

 

The GBC Had an overclocked Z80 CPU running at double the speed of the original one, therefore making it compatible with the original model (by "underclocking" the CPU to half (original GB speed)

 

The GBA had it's own newer CPU, together with a GBC CPU and a Z80 CPU, again to stay compatible with older GB/GBC games as well as the ability to play GBA games

 

The DS cannot play older GB/GBC games for 2 reasons:

1. The original GB/GBC carts do not fit into the DS because of physical incompatability (simple: it dosn't fit)

2. The DS lacks the older Z80 CPU (from the original GBs) and is therefore not compatible with older games

 

for more information on hardware etc.: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_Boy_Light

 

Magestorm is incorrect, how he got his old games running on his DS, I would like to know... but it can't play the older games without heavy hardware modifications.

 

The only non-DS games that the DS supports are games for GBA (though there is no multiplayer support)