Research Centre
Art and Design Research Centre

Date
2013

A design history of computer vapourware

While most historical accounts of the development of computer design focus on specific computers or manufacturers, examining the success stories of hardware and operating systems, Delete: A History of Vapourware creates a completely new narrative by investigating the machines that didn’t make it.

Fascinating, full-colour images of computer designs, many of them previously unpublished, are accompanied by the hitherto untold stories of their planning and development, the pitfalls and successes in their creation, the market and competition at the time and the reasons why they never finally appeared for sale.

Appealing both to a broad audience and to a more specialist one of designers and computer historians, Delete, with its unique collection of prototypes that never made it to the market, depicts a technological world that might have been.

Please click here for more information.

Delete was reviewed by Rachel Simone Weil in Design and Culture, the Journal of the Design Studies Forum in September 2015. Download the review here (PDF, 302.8KB) (PDF 303KB).

Researchers involved

Professor Paul Atkinson - Professor of Design and Design History

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