Orphaned technology refers to computer technologies that have been abandoned by their original developers. As opposed to

deprecation Deprecation is the discouragement of use of something human-made, such as a term, feature, design, or practice. Typically something is deprecated because it is claimed to be inferior compared to other options available. Something may be deprec ...

, which tends to be a gradual shift away from an older technology to newer technology, orphaned technology is usually abandoned immediately or with no direct replacement. Unlike

abandonware Abandonware is a term for software, typically video games, that are no longer for sale by conventional means and are distributed by warez websites for free. The use of the "abandonware" term is controversial, as distributing out-of-print softw ...

, orphaned technology refers to both

software Software consists of computer programs that instruct the Execution (computing), execution of a computer. Software also includes design documents and specifications. The history of software is closely tied to the development of digital comput ...

and hardware and the practices around them. Users of orphaned technologies must often make a choice continuing to use the technology, which may become harder to maintain over time, or switch to other supported technologies, possibly losing capabilities unique to the orphaned technology.

Reasoning

While technology can be abandoned due to an unfavourable design or poor implementation, abandoning a technology can happen for a variety of reasons. There are instances where products are phased out of the market because they are no longer viable as business ventures, such as certain medical technologies. Some orphaned technologies do not suffer complete abandonment or obsolescence. For instance, there is the case of IBM's Silicon Germanium (SiGe) technology, which is a program that produced an ''in situ'' doped alloy as a replacement for the conventional implantation step in silicon semiconductor bipolar process. The technology was previously orphaned but was continued again by a small team at IBM so that it emerged as a leading product in the high-volume communications marketplace. Technologies orphaned due to failure on the part of their startup developers can be picked up by another investor. One example is Wink, an IoT technology orphaned when its parent company Quirky filed for bankruptcy. The platform, however, continued after it was purchased by another company, Flex.

Examples

Some examples of orphaned technology include: * Apple Lisa - 16/32-bit graphical computer * Apple Newton PDA (Apple Newton) - tablet computer * Apple Classic Mac OS -

m68k The Motorola 68000 series (also known as 680x0, m68000, m68k, or 68k) is a family of 32-bit complex instruction set computer (CISC) microprocessors. During the 1980s and early 1990s, they were popular in personal computers and workstations and w ...

and

PowerPC PowerPC (with the backronym Performance Optimization With Enhanced RISC – Performance Computing, sometimes abbreviated as PPC) is a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture (ISA) created by the 1991 Apple Inc., App ...

operating system * Coleco ADAM - 8-bit

home computer Home computers were a class of microcomputers that entered the market in 1977 and became common during the 1980s. They were marketed to consumers as affordable and accessible computers that, for the first time, were intended for the use of a s ...

* DEC Alpha - 64-bit

microprocessor A microprocessor is a computer processor (computing), processor for which the data processing logic and control is included on a single integrated circuit (IC), or a small number of ICs. The microprocessor contains the arithmetic, logic, a ...

* Finale (scorewriter) music notation software developed by MakeMusic from 1988 until 2024 *

HyperCard HyperCard is a application software, software application and software development kit, development kit for Apple Macintosh and Apple IIGS computers. It is among the first successful hypermedia systems predating the World Wide Web. HyperCard com ...

- hypermedia * ICAD (KBE) - knowledge-based engineering * Javelin Software - modeling and data analysis * LISP machines - LISP oriented computers * Mattel Aquarius *

Microsoft Bob Microsoft Bob was a Microsoft software product intended to provide a more user-friendly interface for the Windows 3.1, Windows 95 and Windows NT operating systems, supplanting the Windows Program Manager. The program was released on March 10, ...

- graphical helper * Mosaic notation program - music notation application by

Mark of the Unicorn Mark of the Unicorn (MOTU) is a music-related computer software and hardware supplier developed by Jason Linhart, Craig Finseth, Scott Layson Burson, Brian Hess. It is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts and has created music software since 1984. ...

* Open Music System - Gibson * OpenDoc - compound documents (

Mac OS Mac operating systems were developed by Apple Inc. in a succession of two major series. In 1984, Apple debuted the operating system that is now known as the classic Mac OS with its release of the original Macintosh System Software. The system ...

OS/2 OS/2 is a Proprietary software, proprietary computer operating system for x86 and PowerPC based personal computers. It was created and initially developed jointly by IBM and Microsoft, under the leadership of IBM software designer Ed Iacobucci, ...

) * Poly-1 - parallel networked computer designed in New Zealand for use in education and training * Prograph - visual programming system * TI 99/4A - 16-bit

Windows 9x Windows 9x is a generic term referring to a line of discontinued Microsoft Windows operating systems released from 1995 to 2000 and supported until 2006, which were based on the kernel introduced in Windows 95 and modified in succeeding version ...

- x86 operating system Symbolics Inc's operating systems,

Genera Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family as used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In binomial nomenclature, the genus name forms the first part of the binomial s ...

and OpenGenera, were twice orphaned, as they were ported from LISP machines to computers using the

Alpha Alpha (uppercase , lowercase ) is the first letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of one. Alpha is derived from the Phoenician letter ''aleph'' , whose name comes from the West Semitic word for ' ...

64-bit In computer architecture, 64-bit integers, memory addresses, or other data units are those that are 64 bits wide. Also, 64-bit central processing units (CPU) and arithmetic logic units (ALU) are those that are based on processor registers, a ...

CPU.

User groups

User groups often exist for specific orphaned technologies, such as The

Hong Kong Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...

Newton User Group, Symbolics Lisp achinesUsers' Group (now known as the Association of Lisp Users), and Newton Reference. The Save Sibelius group sprang into existence because Sibelius (scorewriter) users feared the application would be orphaned after its owners Avid Tech fired most of the development team, who were thereafter hired by Steinberg to develop the competing product, Dorico.Spreadbury, Daniel. (20 February 2013).
Welcome!
'. Publisher: '' Steinberg'' (Boston, USA)

References

{{Reflist Orphan works Technological change Information technology

Reasoning

Examples

User groups

See also

References