A year never goes by without someone inventing something hilariously useless. Over the next ten pages, we'll take you on a guided tour of disastrous tech products, the gadgets and concepts we felt really surpassed themselves in being utterly crapulous. Many of these travesties aimed to reinvent the wheel, but were plagued by huge dollops of fail. Speaking of which...
Sinclair C5
Despite being an electric vehicle that respected the environment, the
Sinclair C5 was a prodigious commercial flop. This battery- and pedal-powered three-wheeler was ahead of its time -- it was the first electric vehicle designed for mass production. Sadly it sucked beyond belief.
When released in January 1985, the C5 cost £399, back when the average house price in the UK was about £31,000. Designed by Sir Clive Sinclair, it was essentially a battery-assisted tricycle with handlebars for steering. Perhaps one of the reasons it never took off as a mode of transport was that its top speed was a crappy 15mph -- just twice the speed of one of those electric mobility scooters for old people.
Total sales figures vary from source to source, but the average is about 15,000 units sold. The main problems of the C5 include the fact that the driver was exposed to the weather, cold weather shortened its battery life -- well done launching it in January, Sir Clive -- the seat-to-pedal distance was unchangeable, there were no gears and it overheated going up hills. Uselessness of the highest order.
Barcode Battler
Released in 1991, the Barcode Battler was up against legendary hand-held gaming devices such as Sega's Game Gear and the Nintendo Game Boy. By contrast with these design classics, the Battler had extremely basic graphics and audio, and it was a bloody nightmare to play.
The console engaged players in a rudimentary fighting game. Fights were displayed not as characters, not even as little two-dimensional blokes running about, but as numbers on a screen. The basic idea was to swipe special barcode-equipped cards -- or even barcodes from everyday products -- through the console's card reader. This added your fighter to the battle. Repeating the process with an enemy card added your opponent.
What happens next? Well, check out the superb video above from Dr Ashen (honestly, it's great once you get past the brown sofa). It's incredible that this never caught on.
