Obsolete Hardware

Mark's latest post about the discontinued Xbox 360 HD-DVD drive reminded me of a similar situation nearly a decade ago.

Mark and I were at the 1999 E3 convention in L.A. and were browsing through Microsoft's new PC gaming peripherals. I was particularly impressed with the SideWinder Dual Strike as it was specifically designed and marketed for FPS gamers like myself. On paper it seemed to have a distinct advantage over the traditional mouse and keyboard which I always thought was a temporary solution at best.

As soon as the SideWinder was available for retail, I purchased one at BestBuy for $49.99. Hardware design limitations aside, (it had a clunky D pad which wasn't very precise and a fixed rotational control which was fatal when playing with gamers who could rotate 180 degrees with a flick of their mice) I started to adjust to it.

Then, about a month or so afterwards, Windows 2000 was released. I immediately upgraded to benefit from the more stable NT kernel but without any regard to potential driver support issues. The Dual Strike was a brand new product from Microsoft and the company would surely support it with their latest OS, right? Nope - Windows 98 only. After contacting customer service, I was reminded of the system requirements on the box. Soon afterwards, Microsoft quietly discontinued the product. It wasn't until a couple of years ago did I have the strength to throw away the product and it's mint condition box in the trash. Funny that it was only today that I discovered that Microsoft reintroduced driver support with their Windows XP SP-2 update.

Gotta love technology.