Arrived! Island of Misfit Tech Toys!

Misfit Tech Toys on my sailing vessel - made it to the island just in time for Santa to deliver ;)

• ActionTec ScreenBeam – this toy was designed to share your computer screen to a TV. The use case was for lectures and presentations displayed on a large mounted TV. The keystroke to activate was Windows-K to extend your display. Today this functionality has largely been replaced (not completely) with this built-in functionality on smart TVs. And who remembers ActionTec in a prior life as the maker of kick ass modems.
• Token Ring -Not the late 1980s/1990s networking standard but this snappy start up has brought multi-factor authentication (MFN) to a new level with a ring that you wear and tap near its home base pad to authenticate you. As I bachelor, I sometimes wear it on my ring finger to deter unwanted attention from the ladies 😉 PS – this product has been improved and updated so it’s worth a look. I was turned on to the “ring” by Beth Hanneken who had a career stop there as a channel manager a couple years ago.
• Amzon Echo Auto -  Seen to the far left is the Amazon Echo Auto SKU that would play music, podcasts, etc. on your car radio. It had a short-lived life as smartphones with Bluetooth replaced this early effort. I used it for a hot minute.
• Amazon Kindle - This is a gen one version that one fine day just up and died. I’ve upgraded to the Kindle PaperWhite and I still prefer using this device to read books (including many of those geeky pubs featuring Windows Small Business Server by yours truly
• Cisco Flip Camera -  I was gifted this for review by D&H Distributing over ten years ago and really enjoyed it but it was largely replaced by the awesome video technology found on smart mobile phones today.
• Point and Click - A lecture pointer and PPTX slide advancer thingy. This was given out as attendee gifts at numerous Microsoft small business events like Big Day. I recently put new batteries in it but the darn thing would work 15+ years later. Imagine that!
• Early Apple iPods -These still work but here again were supplanted by smart mobile phones. Kids won’t get this.
• Level Platforms level -  I still use to this to properly balance the mount framed art on my walls. That little balance bubble works great. Level Platforms was an early innovator in the Remote Management and Monitoring (RMM) market. Got acquired just under 20-years ago.
• Apple II+ computer - I bought this personal computer in 1982 with my summer earnings from my job on the Trans-Alaska pipeline for just over $3,000 (which is north of $13k today). It had a 40-character upper case green screen and I learned to program in Apple Basic (who remembers the short script called “Hello World” LOL. This machine change my life and off I went into the tech sector 😉 Funny fact: I was the only one with a “computer” in my college apartment building. The 300-baud Hayes modem (great product” allowed me to engage in cloud computing (back then it was called timesharing) and I’d dial into the VAX and complete my computer programming assignments. Friends used to bring weed and beer to me to use the computer to program instead of waiting in long computer lines at midnight at the on-site computer lab. Such is life LOL. And some of y’all will say “No Way” and I’ll say “Way” so name that 1970/1980s reference by two early Saturday Night Live actors (Can you name them? Kids won’t get this)

The machine that changed my life!

Tech Museum

SMB Nation community member Howard Cohen introduced me to Tim Bajarin, Chairman at Creative Strategies Inc. in the Silicon Valley. Bajarin is the curator of the Tech Museum and the snaps show his extensive collection. Bajarin and I are gonna meetup in mid-January to describe his collection. Can’t wait and keep it tuned right here!

Teaser Alert:  Bajarin promises to discuss these nuggets in his podcast

• Original Apple Newton
• Poquet computer.

How many tech toys do you have hidden away? If so – please reach out to my partners at Digiunity and arrange for a possible donation. Tell Sue that Harry at SMB Nation sent ya!.