Fifteen of the Worst PC Designs

Throughout the long history of computing, many, many foolish mistakes have been made. When you first caught wind of one, the only appropriate response could have been, “What were they thinking?!”, and a new article at the Technologizer takes a look at fifteen classic mistakes that we can hope will never reappear in the future. Just how bad can these mistakes be?

Well let me tell you… there’s nothing minor here. Take the Apple III, for example. This business-oriented PC had a goal of quiet operation. How was that achieved? By removing the power supply fan! Needless to say, nobody was pleased with warped motherboards, or lackluster Apple II emulation. Then there’s the Mattel Aquarius… a PC inside of a keyboard. Nothing new (at least back then), but what made it stand out were its rubber (yes, rubber) keys and built-in PSU adapter cable. Geez.

One of my favorites in the list has to be the IBM PCjr, a PC that offered unique expandability and also the world’s first wireless keyboard (it can at least use that at its excuse). This box, using a vast array of proprietary connectors unique to this one machine, offered expandability via “sidecars”… clip-on components that made the machine wider. But the biggest problem was the wireless IR keyboard. Imagine using a wireless keyboard that required you to constantly keep a perfect angle and line-of-sight. Or the $20 add-on cable that turned it into a wired keyboard…

Credit: Steven Stengel

Since the wireless feature on the keyboard turned out to be mostly useless, many users wished they had an old-fashioned, wired keyboard. Surely, one could just plug a regular IBM PC keyboard into the back of the machine and be done with it? Nope, sorry. The IBM PCjr used all non-standard accessory ports, including one for the keyboard. A cable to attach the chiclet keyboard directly to the computer was available for $20 by special order from IBM; it was not included with the system.