This Vintage Wearable Computer Is Considered One Of The Biggest Tech Failures Of All-Time – SlashGear

Xybernaut started in 1990 as Computer Products & Services Inc., founded by former Xerox executive Ed Newman. In 1995, The Washington Post reported that the company had invested millions of dollars into developing the Mobile Assistant (MA), a more than three-pound wearable device and headset combination.

The Mobile Assistant – a forerunner to the Poma — used an IBM-compatible PC with a 486 chip at its heart. It came with a whopping 16 megabytes of RAM and a “huge” 540 mb hard drive. A lithium-ion battery powered the unit to run Microsoft Windows, DOS, and Unix programs. It could be controlled via voice commands (which turned out sketchy at best) or a tiny tethered mouse.

In 1996, CPSI went public and changed its name to Xybernaut. A few years later, it dropped a nine-pound product, called MA-IV, that ran a 233 MHz Pentium MMX processor with 128 MB of RAM, worn around the waist. It did have a massive keyboard the user strapped to their wrist, too.

The Borg-like headset sported an array of goodies, like headphones, a microphone, and a 640×480 pixel display that used a complex system comprised of a one-inch LCD screen that reflected images onto a semi-transparent two-inch surface that projected the image back into the wearer’s right eyeball. One print ad listed an MSRP of $9,687, while another source says it retailed for $7,500.