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Top ten terrible tech products

By Nate Lanxon on 20 November 2007, 3:50pm


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.

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