Sometimes, things don't stick around very long. #Gadgets
It's not the first time you hear technology not sticking around. DOS systems were surpassed by GUIs, Floppies were surpassed by CDs, PS/2 ports were obsolete when USB became mainstream. Tech works like a food-chain, if something new comes out, it's probably going to replace an older counterpart, and then something newer will replace that. Most of us know many examples of that but sometimes there are pieces of tech that not just obsolete, they are forgotten or even unknown by their users. Here's a list of some of the tech world's most obsolete and probably forgotten features and gadgets.
The Keylock
So, the picture on top is a Keylock. It's not that forgotten but it is not well-known to newer computer users. A Keylock did exactly what you think it would do, it locked your computer with a key. Yes, a key. What that lock exactly did varied but it usually locked the keyboard from accepting key-clicks. Some other keylocks locked the computer case from being opened instead of the keyboard being clicked. Some did both. The idea of a Keylock originated from IBM, which faced many complaints from small-businesses that said "our computers are being used without consent, please lock them", and so the idea of the keylock was born with the release of the IBM PC AT (and they developed keylocks for their older machines too).
So, what made the keylock obsolete? Well, how do you lock your computer now?
Using a password or a PIN which pretty much made the keylock obsolete with the release of Windows 95 because not only it had passwords but it also didn't have the keylock's biggest disadvantage.
What was it? Losing the key or accidentally jamming it the wrong way.
Sure you can forget a password but you can reset it, once the key is lost or jammed, your computer no longer functions!
Cassette Tapes but for Computers
This one isn't quite that "unknown" but many have forgotten that it used to be very mainstream in the computers of the 70s and early 80s. Yes, the cassettes that you listened your music and mixed with songs could store data and be used in a computer in a long long time ago. Seriously, it was used by many companies like Commodore, Atari, Tandy, etc. The home computer market could not afford floppies at the time since floppy drives were actually pretty expensive, so home computers had to use the cheaper cassettes. Now, the reason they became obsolete was because A)The floppy drives got cheaper and B)The IBM PCs and Macs didn't support cassettes. Yes, the IBM PC 5150 did have a "cassette" port but according to many sources, there's no cassette drive that supports the IBM PC and MSDOS didn't have any Cassette programs.
The Computer Keyboard Joystick
In retro-computer times, all the way until the late 90s, joysticks were very popular among gamers of all kinds. If you have no idea what a joystick is, and I question your knowledge, it is a controller that has a tall stick that you tilt and move and it produces movement of sorts. It also has a few buttons near the stick but not always. The controller you see today wasn't a thing for computers yet since USB not only wasn't mainstream but also the famous controller design that XBox and PS uses wasn't really mainstream either (since at the time only the PS1 existed and all the other consoles from Sega and Nintendo used other controllers). What's even more forgotten is the Keyboard Joystick. Yes, the Keyboard Joystick was a thing. It was a mini-joystick that you would put on top of your arrow-keys in the computer. That would literally produce the joystick tilting on your hand but it would just click the keys without you noticing. It was really cool but the quality depended on the Keyboard Joystick you purchased. Yes, many companies made that gadget but not all of them made it well. It went obsolete because it never went famous or anything like that.
The Glove-Like Mouse
Yeah, that was once an idea. You might have heard of the orb-mouse, you know, the little spheres that you would use as a mouse alternative if you were into CAD and stuff, they are still used. However, this is not why we're here today as that tool is not obsolete, it's just not known. What we're here for is a tool that was going to quote "replace" both the mouse and the orb-mouse alternative thing. Yes, the Glove Mouse. It was a thing that you would place on top of your fingers and it would accept your index finger as the mouse cursor and the rest as clicks. It would connect through a big black receiver plugged into your PC. Why did it go obsolete if it was a good idea? Well, it sucked. It was very unpredictable and it barely followed your finger as the mouse went haywire. Not only that but it also didn't fit all finger sizes and it was made only for right-hand users. Because it was so clunky and unusable, it was barely supported and it went obsolete pretty quickly. The orb-mouse was a better option for CAD users, so nobody bothered to retry.
The Game Cheater System
Did you ever feel like a game was trolling you? Yeah, all been there. Nowadays you can hop on the internet and look up cheats and walkthroughs but before that, what could you use to cheat the system? Well, there was a time where companies felt like making cheat systems for computers which had many games on their program. The most notable one was the Datel Action Replay. It would be this little mouse-like thing you would plug in your computer alongside its own ISA card in your motherboard. There was a Game Cheater for each system pretty much. The Commodore Amiga had one, MSDOS PCs had one, even consoles got their Cheaters. It would work with software that could reprogram your game with very very certain parameter codes that would do anything from unlimited lives to cheated high-scores. The later cheaters looked more like small dongles with their own CD which would grab the cheats from an online website instead from parameters in an ISA card. Well, those would be less great and the dongle would do nothing but DRM protection (if you want to learn more about DRM, check our own article on that). Yeah, it was cool to have built-in cheats but now games have their own cheat systems and the internet has also made cheats a little obsolete through walkthroughs but the Cheating hardware of older times was quite fun indeed.
Conclusion: How do you really make a tool obsolete?
So, here were some computer features and gadgets that over time, not only they became obsolete but they also became forgotten. Why so? Why can cool things like these be left in a shelf and forgotten there, to be in silence looking at their replacements? As with the keylock, it's sometimes a matter of better tools without the big consequences. If you forgot the key, your computer was forever locked, while if you forgot a password, you could reset it anyway! As with the cassette tapes for computers, it was a matter of better, cheaper, and easier to use technology. A floppy disk was just inserted into its drive and it worked while the cassettes needed to be re-winded, booted into, and then set to play. On the other hand we have the Keyboard Joystick, which not only varied in quality but it also didn't really make grounds to begin with as it wasn't really a "Next Step In Evolution" as it was just a little gadget for people who liked difference. The Glove Mouse was another case of that but in a worse situation as it performed terribly, didn't really have anything to make itself good at but an idea, and it just died quietly at its corner. Lastly, with the Game Cheater systems that were made, it was fun and popular but as the Internet came along and online cheats were made while game developers also made cheats in their own games to be utilized without hardware or software outside the game, the game cheater systems were taken over by better tools. Well, if you have learned anything, it is that tech doesn't always stick around, and even when it does, something is bound to surpass it.