Failures

• phlogiston [1]
• N-rays [2]
• phrenology (a fairly long-lived failure, but still)
• Edsel
• Prohibition
• pay toilets
• Skylab (the landing, anyway), SDI, Mars Polar Lander, Mars Climate Orbiter
• Chisenbop [3], New Math
• New Coke, Crystal Pepsi
• Le Car, Yugo
• Esperanto [4], Interlingua
• Quadraphonic sound
• PCjr, Apple Lisa, Apple Newton, NeXT (remember those "NeVER" buttons?)[5], Apple III , OS/2 (OS Half?), BeOS
• Radio Shack Zoomer, 3Com Audrey, Sony eVilla, Netpliance I-Opener, Gateway/AOL Connected Touch, Microsoft UltimateTV
• The Spruce Goose
• Susan B. Anthony dollar coins [6]
• Kahoutek (if a comet can be considered a failure; more of a disappointment)
• Betamax [7]
• Biosphere 2
• Hands Across America [8]
• Ishtar, Heaven's Gate, Waterworld (also known, tellingly, as "Fishtar" and "Kevin's Gate"), Cleopatra (1963)
  (See also M. Bissell's failed movies list.)
• McDLT, Arch Deluxe, and McLean sandwiches (it turns out that McRib sandwiches are a seasonal item)
• "Cop Rock", "The Chevy Chase Show"
• EBCDIC
• pop-tops
• Hypercolor clothing
• Euro Disney
• Microsoft Bob, Microsoft Multiplan, Lotus Jazz
• cold fusion
• Sega Dreamcast, Sega Saturn
• Boeing Osprey
• eight-track tapes
• Divx
• video discs (laserdisc format)
• Disc cameras
• DCC (Digital Compact Cassette)
• Jaz drives
• EV1 (electric car from General Motors)
• Year-2000 predictions, thank goodness
• XFL football
• Transmeta
• Flavr Savr (genetically engineered) tomatoes
• Sony Universal Media Disk (UMD) format
• Intel Viiv media center
• HD DVD
• We'll see: MiniDisc, Dvorak keyboards, the metric system in daily U.S. life (apart from two-liter soda-pop bottles and grams-per-serving nutrition information on food labels), APS (Advanced Photographic System), SETI, WebTV, Windows Vista
• I told you so: Iridium telephones (11:59 p.m. EST 17 March 2000); Napster (4 Sept. 2002)

Thanks to Holly, Lisa, John, Nicole, Todd, Tom, Cary, Karl, Michael, Aaron, Jeff, John, Matt, Alyssa, Patrick, Jim, Dwayne, Xah, Dan, DasImperator, and Dan, wherever and whoever you are.

Copyright © 1999–2008 Robert Dickau.

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