This MedLibrary.org supplementary page on Orphaned technology is provided directly from the open source Wikipedia as a service to our readers. Please see the note below on authorship of this content, as well as the Wikipedia usage guidelines. To search for other content from our encyclopedia supplement, please use the form below:
Related Sponsors
Orphaned technology is a descriptive term for computer products, programs, and platforms that have been abandoned by their original developers. Orphaned technology refers to software, such as abandonware and antique software, but also to hardware and practices. In computer software standards and documentation, deprecation is the gradual phasing-out of a software or programming language feature.
For users of superior technologies that have been withdrawn from the market, there is a choice between maintaining their surrounding environments in some form of emulation or switching to other supported products and losing those capabilities.
Examples of orphaned technologies that still have or had a following after being dropped include DEC Alpha microprocessor, LISP machines, especially those of Symbolics Inc., OpenDoc, the Newton PDA (Apple Newton), Hypercard, the Prograph visual programming system, and the Apple II series of computers, and Classic Mac OS. Symbolics Inc.'s operating systems, Genera and OpenGenera were twice orphaned, as they were ported from LISP machines to computers using the Alpha 64-bit CPU. User groups often exist for specific orphaned technologies, such as The Hong Kong Newton User Group[1], Symbolics Lisp [Machines] Users' Group[2], and Newton Reference[3].
Orphan technologies also refer to technologies for which there is a need, but not a large enough market to make investment in the technology financially viable.
See also
External links
- Orphaned Technology: Factors Inhibiting the Use of Data Management Software at a Northern California Middle School
- Dashed Dreams and Orphaned Technology
- Is DHTML Dead?
 |
This electronics-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
Wikipedia content modification information:
- This page was last modified on 6 October 2008, at 21:33.
Wikipedia Authorship and Review
Wikipedia content provided here is not reviewed directly by MedLibrary.org. Wikipedia content is authored by an open community of volunteers and is not produced by or in any way affiliated with MedLibrary.org.
Wikipedia Usage Guidelines
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article on "Orphaned technology".
The URL for this specific entry is:
All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. (See Copyrights for details). Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.