Orphaned technology is a descriptive term for

computer A computer is a machine that can be programmed to Execution (computing), carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as C ...

products, programs, and platforms that have been abandoned by their original developers. Orphaned technology refers to

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consists ...

, such as

abandonware Abandonware is a product, typically software, ignored by its owner and manufacturer, and for which no official support is available. Within an intellectual rights contextual background, abandonware is a software (or hardware) sub-case of the g ...

and antique software, but also to

computer hardware Computer hardware includes the physical parts of a computer, such as the computer case, case, central processing unit (CPU), Random-access memory, random access memory (RAM), Computer monitor, monitor, Computer mouse, mouse, Computer keyboard, ...

and practices. In computer software standards and documentation, deprecation is the gradual phasing-out of a software or

programming language A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Most programming languages are text-based formal languages, but they may also be graphical. They are a kind of computer language. The description of a programming ...

feature, while orphaning usually connotes a sudden discontinuation, usually for business-related reasons, of a product with an active user base. For users of technologies that have been withdrawn from the market, there is a choice between maintaining their software support environments in some form of

emulation Emulation may refer to: *Emulation (computing), imitation of behavior of a computer or other electronic system with the help of another type of system :*Video game console emulator, software which emulates video game consoles *Gaussian process em ...

, or switching to other supported products, possibly losing capabilities unique to their original solution. Abandoning a technology is not only due to bad or outmoded idea. There are instances, such as the case of some medical technologies, where products are phased out the market because they are no longer viable as business ventures. Some orphaned technologies do not suffer complete abandonment or obsolescence. For instance, there is the case of IBM's

Silicon Germanium Silicon is a chemical element with the symbol Si and atomic number 14. It is a hard, brittle crystalline solid with a blue-grey metallic luster, and is a tetravalent metalloid and semiconductor. It is a member of group 14 in the periodic tab ...

(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. This is demonstrated by Wink, an IoT technology orphaned when its parent company Quirky filed for bankruptcy. The platform, however, continued after it was purchased by another company called Flex. Some well-known examples of orphaned technology include: *

Coleco ADAM The Coleco Adam is a home computer and expansion device for the ColecoVision released in 1983 by American toy and video game manufacturer Coleco. It was an attempt to follow on the success of the company's ColecoVision video game console. The Ad ...

- 8-bit home computer * TI 99/4A - 16-bit home computer *

Mattel Aquarius Aquarius is a home computer designed by Radofin and released by Mattel Electronics in 1983. Based on the Zilog Z80 microprocessor, the system has a rubber chiclet keyboard, 4K of RAM, and a subset of Microsoft BASIC in ROM. It connects to a te ...

* Apple Lisa - 16/32-bit graphical computer *

Newton PDA The Newton is a series of personal digital assistants (PDAs) developed and marketed by Apple Computer, Inc. An early device in the PDA category (the Newton originated the term), it was the first to feature handwriting recognition. Apple started ...

(Apple Newton) - tablet computer *

DEC Alpha Alpha (original name Alpha AXP) is a 64-bit reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture (ISA) developed by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). Alpha was designed to replace 32-bit VAX complex instruction set compute ...

- 64-bit

microprocessor A microprocessor is a computer processor where the data processing logic and control is included on a single integrated circuit, or a small number of integrated circuits. The microprocessor contains the arithmetic, logic, and control circu ...

HyperCard HyperCard is a software application and development kit for Apple Macintosh and Apple IIGS computers. It is among the first successful hypermedia systems predating the World Wide Web. HyperCard combines a flat-file database with a graphical, f ...

- hypermedia * ICAD (KBE) - knowledge-based engineering *

Javelin Software Javelin Software Corporation (1984–1988) was a company in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, which developed an innovative modeling and data analysis product, also called ''Javelin'' (versions 1.0 in 1984 to 1.1), and later ''Javelin Plus'' (vers ...

- modeling and data analysis *

LISP machines Lisp machines are general-purpose computers designed to efficiently run Lisp as their main software and programming language, usually via hardware support. They are an example of a high-level language computer architecture, and in a sense, the ...

- LISP oriented computers * 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 *

Microsoft Bob Microsoft Bob is a Microsoft software product intended to provide a more user-friendly interface for the Windows 3.1x, Windows 95 and Windows NT operating systems, supplanting the Windows Program Manager. The program was released on March 11, 199 ...

- graphical helper *

Windows 9x Windows 9x is a generic term referring to a series of Microsoft Windows computer operating systems produced from 1995 to 2000, which were based on the Windows 95 kernel and its underlying foundation of MS-DOS, both of which were updated in su ...

- x86 operating system *

OpenDoc OpenDoc is a defunct multi-platform software componentry framework standard created by Apple in the 1990s for compound documents, intended as an alternative to Microsoft's proprietary Object Linking and Embedding (OLE). It is one of Apple's e ...

- compound documents (

Mac OS Two major famlies of Mac operating systems were developed by Apple Inc. 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, rebranded "M ...

OS/2 OS/2 (Operating System/2) is a series of computer operating systems, initially created by Microsoft and IBM under the leadership of IBM software designer Ed Iacobucci. As a result of a feud between the two companies over how to position OS/2 ...

) *

Prograph Prograph is a visual, object-oriented, dataflow, multiparadigm programming language that uses iconic symbols to represent actions to be taken on data. Commercial Prograph software development environments such as Prograph Classic and Prograph CP ...

- visual programming system *

Poly-1 The Poly-1 was a desktop computer designed in New Zealand for educational use. Background The Poly-1 was developed in 1980 by Neil Scott and Paul Bryant, who at the time were teaching electronics engineering at Wellington Polytechnic (now Massey ...

- parallel networked computer designed in New Zealand for use in education and training * 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. It is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts and has created music software since 1984. In the mid-1980s, Mark of the Unicorn sold productivity software and severa ...

* Open Music System -

Gibson Gibson may refer to: People * Gibson (surname) Businesses * Gibson Brands, Inc., an American manufacturer of guitars, other musical instruments, and audio equipment * Gibson Technology, and English automotive and motorsport company based * Gi ...

Symbolics Inc's operating systems,

Genera Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nomenclat ...

and OpenGenera, were twice orphaned, as they were ported from

to computers using the

Alpha Alpha (uppercase , lowercase ; grc, ἄλφα, ''álpha'', or ell, άλφα, álfa) 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 , whic ...

64-bit In computer architecture, 64-bit Integer (computer science), integers, memory addresses, or other Data (computing), data units are those that are 64 bits wide. Also, 64-bit central processing unit, CPUs and arithmetic logic unit, ALUs are those ...

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

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

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) Sibelius is a scorewriter program developed and released by Sibelius Software Limited (now part of Avid Technology). It is the world's largest selling music notation program. Beyond creating, editing and printing music scores, Sibelius can ...

users feared the application would be orphaned after its owners Avid Tech fired most of the development team, who were thereafter hired by

Steinberg Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH (trading as Steinberg) is a German musical software and hardware company based in Hamburg. It develops music writing, recording, arranging, and editing software, most notably Cubase, Nuendo, and Dorico. It als ...

to develop the competing product,

Dorico Dorico () is a scorewriter software; along with Finale and Sibelius, it is one of the three leading professional-level music notation programs. Dorico's development team consists of most of the former core developers of a rival software, Sibe ...

References

{{Reflist Orphan works Technological change Information technology

See also

References