The nature of technology means that today's cutting-edge gadget or service is often tomorrow's old news. So it's easy for once-mighty tech brands to get left behind, whether because they're displaced by better technology, or because the marketing department decided it was time for something new.

We've highlighted 25 tech brands that were either huge hits or had huge hype over the last 25 years or so -- brands that you're far less likely to be using today. Click on each brand for a mini-profile -- what they meant at their prime, and what they're up to now -- or scroll through the list beginning here (use the scroll keys to the right of the text, under the "Tech's Forgotten Brands" graphic).

1. AltaVista

2. Amiga

3. Atari

4. Broderbund

5. CDNow

6. Commodore

7. Compuserve

8. CueCat

9. Cyberian Outpost

10. Divx

11. Egghead Software

12. eToys

13. Geocities

14. Inktomi

15. Iomega

16. Lotus

17. Lycos

18. Netscape

19. Packard Bell

20. Prodigy

21. Silicon Graphics

22. Tandy

23. Tomagatchi

24. U.S. Robotics

25. WordPerfect