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Advancements in technologies made obsolete before they were perfected IOTL

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/André_Chapelon

That's the guy I was talking about (and probably massacred the name !)

And some of its late works, superlative performance and superlative look altogether. Alas, by 1955,french electric and diesel locomotives already broke the 300 km/hour barrier.

http://thierry.stora.free.fr/english/chapelon_plans.htm

https://redcdn.net/hpimg11/pics/644623Gelsa242planR.jpg

Jean Bertin and his Aerotrain is another example of a dead-end, although excellent, advanced train technology. Also the 1972 TGV-001 (318 km per hour) was gas turbine and not (nuclear) electric. The oil shock send both Aerotrain and gas turbine TGV to the graveyard.

Space Launch Vehicle is also a graveyard of advanced or clever concepts never build for whatever reason. And SpaceX BFR/BFS may brutally accelerates that trend and soon make a lot of past, present and even future launch vehicles utterly obsoletes (all the way from Apollo to Shuttle to SLS including X-33, X-34, X-38, Hermes, Ariane 5, Proton... and countless others !)

Falcon Heavy by itself has already brought back the Triamese of 1968 and also fully realized the lost promises of the initial Space Shuttle of 1969 (that is: partially reusable: check. 23 mt to orbit: check. Launch 20, 30 times a year: check. Reusable booster: check. Drop the cost of space launch by a factor of 10: check. Manned and cargo vehicle to a space station: Dragon and Dragon 2, check)
 
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The BETA video cassette. It lost to the VHS because of corporate stupidity but it was amazing quality for what it was. You can only get half of a VHS onto a BETA though...

... was really popular with the news networks though....
 
ImperialGermanKomandant said:
The BETA video cassette. It lost to the VHS because of corporate stupidity but it was amazing quality for what it was. You can only get half of a VHS onto a BETA though...

... was really popular with the news networks though....
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Well no, according to the librarians I know from the time, it lost due to two simple facts: record lengths, and porn. The first one was that, given the data caps, you couldn't actually get that much on to a BETA, even though what you did have was in amazing quality. The second was that VHS was dirt cheap, which let the porn industry standardize to it and distribute, and that was a massive low-effort market in the US. 'Blue' theatres that aired porn were a constant target, so when the option to get away from it came up the industry jumped on it with both feet and took the losses in the conversion time to get everything pushed. And since a lot of out-of-work video guys fell down the ladder into the industry, when they recovered they took the VHS preference back with 'em.
 
Tabac Iberez said:
Well no, according to the librarians I know from the time, it lost due to two simple facts: record lengths, and porn. The first one was that, given the data caps, you couldn't actually get that much on to a BETA, even though what you did have was in amazing quality. The second was that VHS was dirt cheap, which let the porn industry standardize to it and distribute, and that was a massive low-effort market in the US. 'Blue' theatres that aired porn were a constant target, so when the option to get away from it came up the industry jumped on it with both feet and took the losses in the conversion time to get everything pushed. And since a lot of out-of-work video guys fell down the ladder into the industry, when they recovered they took the VHS preference back with 'em.
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From my old film teacher in high school told it differently. VHS simply had everyone and their brother in on it while BETA was basically proprietary. The teacher also said that the news studios used the BETA for field recording. :\
 
ImperialGermanKomandant said:
From my old film teacher in high school told it differently. VHS simply had everyone and their brother in on it while BETA was basically proprietary. The teacher also said that the news studios used the BETA for field recording. :\
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I mean, he's not wrong. BETA did have either a patent or a licence tied to it that made it more expensive, and I already explained why everyone on the consumer side was buying it.
 
Good video (part of 2 of 3) on RCA's analogue video disc CED, marketed under the SelectaVision brand. Verges into AH commentary in the final third imagining if they had been able to get to market a year or so before VHS/Betamax it could have really taken off (even after its OTL 1981 release those that did buy it bought maybe 20 discs a year) since pre-recorded videotapes weren't much of a thing that early on (the format mainly used for timeshifting). Even considers some butterflies that if this format was successful it might have seen VHS/Betamax recording outlaws in the 1980s.

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A gonzo plan by the H. L Yoh company to make a tank that had an engine in the back of the turret is one I've always liked.

9h7fZj6.jpg
 
Interesting example of this: LGR and one of his fans have discovered a way, using a new codec, to get not-entirely-terrible-quality video clips that play from floppy disk. In theory there's no reason why these couldn't have been put on the cover of magazines in the 90s (as software floppies in computer magazines already were), maybe trailers in film magazines or something?

Playing the LGR Floppy Disks Video FROM a floppy disk! - YouTube
 
Kato said:
The very rapid boom in UK canal building, brought to an abrupt end by the emergence of practical steam railways, is another one that comes to mind.
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Replying to an old post here, but it prompted a further thought. In OTL, railways had a couple of big advantages over canals. Firstly the capital costs of building them were a lot lower (although the operating costs aka freight costs were considerably higher than canals). Second was that railways could be built directly between nearly any two points - they weren’t as geographically constrained as canals in the routes they had to follow.

In an ATL where canal building kicks off a couple of decades earlier, it might actually have considerable consequences for the development of railways. With another two decades, the canal network would be much more diverse - it wouldn’t have the direct routes that railways offered, but connections could still be made. And freight would be moved much cheaper than along railways. So there would be much less incentive to invest in railways since it would need new capital investment and then charging more for freight.

So the consequence of an earlier canal network could actually be a considerable delay in the spread of railways compared to OTL - several decades or so.
 
Thande said:
Interesting example of this: LGR and one of his fans have discovered a way, using a new codec, to get not-entirely-terrible-quality video clips that play from floppy disk. In theory there's no reason why these couldn't have been put on the cover of magazines in the 90s (as software floppies in computer magazines already were), maybe trailers in film magazines or something?

Playing the LGR Floppy Disks Video FROM a floppy disk! - YouTube
Click to expand...

Might have become especially commonplace had high capacity floppy discs really taken off and lasted.
 
A little-known also-ran in the history of personal computing is the Microwriter, an input system intended to replace the clunky, wrist-straining QWERTY keyboards inherited from the age of analog typewriters. Developed in 1978, it allowed a user to type with one hand, using six keys to select letters and numbers using a fairly intuitive mnemonic method. It failed to catch on and stopped production in 1985, just a few years before cellular phones started becoming an everyday item.

Which makes me wonder if its input system might have presented an ergonomic, convenient solution for typing messages on cell phones had it held on for a bit longer. There's certainly a big advantage to being able to type using the same hand that's holding the phone, instead of awkwardly using both.

microwriter_1.jpg
 
Interesting thread about a failed early video format called Cartrivision, which debuted in the early 70s but only on big television consoles equipped with Catrivision players (woodgrain, naturally) and from that shaky start continued to get absolutely everything wrong.


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There are many historical opportunities for media formats that did not take off to become big in an ATL... this is most definitely not one of them.

Still, love that woodgrain and pornography rentals you had to request from a catalogue in a store.
 
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