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Ask HN: Abandoned/dead projects you think died before their time and why?

358 points ofalkaed | 2 comments | 11 Oct 25 22:16 UTC | HN request time: 0.492s | source

Just curious and who knows, maybe someone will adopt it or develop something new based on its ideas.
1. zweifuss ◴[12 Oct 25 11:53 UTC] No.45557516[source]▶
MS Sidewinder Force Feedback Pro (1997) and Sidewinder Force Feedback 2 (USB). You can buy similar today, but nowhere near the pricepoint. Also the out of the box support by Windows has vanished, and therefore the incentive of game developers to include force feedback.
replies(1): >>45559069 #
2. Hobadee ◴[12 Oct 25 15:48 UTC] No.45559069[source]▶
I still have my MS Force Feedback 2, and it still works great!

I heard that some patent troll got a hold of the patent for force feedback joysticks, and all manufacturers just gave up on them because of the troll. The patent expired recently IIRC, so hopefully people will start making them again soon.