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PC World's 50 Best Tech Products of All Time
Posted by
kdawson
on Tue Apr 03, 2007 04:41 AM
from the time-starts-in-1977 dept.
from the time-starts-in-1977 dept.
Ant writes "PC World picks the 50 best tech products of all time. Apple holds down seven places in the list, Microsoft two, and open source software (Red Hat Linux) one. The top five, according to PC World, are: Netscape Navigator (1994), Apple II (1977), TiVo HDR110 (1999), Napster (1999), and Lotus 1-2-3 for DOS (1983).
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The list (Score:5, Informative)
2. Apple II (1977)
3. TiVo HDR110 (1999)
4. Napster (1999)
5. Lotus 1-2-3 for DOS (1983)
6. Apple iPod (2001)
7. Hayes Smartmodem (1981)
8. Motorola StarTAC (1996)
9. WordPerfect 5.1 (1989)
10. Tetris (1985)
11. Adobe Photoshop 3.0 (1994)
12. IBM ThinkPad 700C (1992)
13. Atari VCS/2600 (1977)
14. Apple Macintosh Plus (1986)
15. RIM BlackBerry 857 (2000)
16. 3dfx Voodoo3 (1999)
17. Canon Digital Elph S100 (2000)
18. Palm Pilot 1000 (1996)
19. id Software Doom (1993)
20. Microsoft Windows 95 (1995)
21. Apple iTunes 4 (2003)
22. Nintendo Game Boy (1989)
23. Iomega Zip Drive (1994)
24. Spybot Search & Destroy (2000)
25. Compaq Deskpro 386 (1986)
26. CompuServe (1982)
27. Blizzard World of Warcraft (2004)
28. Aldus PageMaker (1985)
29. HP LaserJet 4L (1993)
30. Apple Mac OS X (2001)
31. Nintendo Entertainment System (1985)
32. Eudora (1988)
33. Sony Handycam DCR-VX1000 (1995)
34. Apple Airport Base Station (1999)
35. Brøderbund The Print Shop (1984)
36. McAfee VirusScan (1990)
37. Commodore Amiga 1000 (1985)
38. ChipSoft TurboTax (1985)
39. Mirabilis ICQ (1996)
40. Creative Labs Sound Blaster 16 (1992)
41. Apple HyperCard (1987)
42. Epson MX-80 (1980)
43. Central Point Software PC Tools (1985)
44. Canon EOS Digital Rebel (2003)
45. Red Hat Linux (1994)
46. Adaptec Easy CD Creator (1996)
47. PC-Talk (1982)
48. Sony Mavica MVC-FD5 (1997)
49. Microsoft Excel (1985)
50. Northgate OmniKey Ultra (1987)
Re:The list (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know, but I'd submit that realistic polyphonic sound/music was more revolutionary than 3D hardware acceleration. 3D graphics are cool and all, but at least the CPU could generate 3D graphics (Quake?) before hardware acceleration - if it weren't for the Soundblaster we'd be playing visually stunning games with beeps and parps for sound effects.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
IF a 3d accelerator is mentioned at that point, it should be voodoo1.
RealSound? Covox? (Score:4, Interesting)
In addition, long before the SoundBlaster, there was the Covox - a parallel port piece of electronics you could build at home with the right components and a soldering iron - which produced superior sound. Eventually a stereo version was able to be made and addressed as well.
Now, I'll agree that the soundblaster line of products actually kicked off the real audio revolution as finally you got great quality -without- the parallel port fidgeting.. just plunk in the card and pray you get the address, irq and whatnot settings set up right; but once they were, off you were.
Parent
Re:RealSound? Covox? (Score:5, Funny)
Ah, memories.
Parent
No, Creative did not invent the sound card (Score:3, Informative)
SB16 was introduced in the same year (1992) as the Gravis Ultrasound, which, in contrast, had a 32 channel sample-based synthetiser with antialiasing and this card was largely responsible for creating the PC module scene. Sinc
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The Atari 800 had 4 channel sound in 1978. Next?
The Voodoo *3* ?!?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
I can understand that they choose to mention 3Dfx : the company played a key role introducing hardware accelerated 3d to the masses who up to that point mostly had only software flat shaded pixelated polygons.
They could have picked up the Voodoo Graphics, as the first affordable 3D card, whereas before hardware 3D was something only used by movie studios.
They could have picked up the Voodoo 2, one of the most popular 3d card (and from a technical point of view, whose dual pipelines where behind the shadow map used by most FPS games) and with very good longevity, thanks to the SLI technology.
They could have picked up the later Voodoo 4/5, the first card to introduce the antialiasing effects and similar (was a small revolution in term of quality) and initiator of open-source compression (still found in Intel's chips).
But the voodoo 3 ? It has almost no new characteristics (appart from a slightly better pseudo-22bits filter), it's not even the first all-in-one 2D & 3D card nor the first AGP (both from 3Dfx - previous was the banshee - or from concurrence).
It's a nice card, with a couple of nice features (better quality at 16bits thanks to filters), but it basically looked like any other card on the market.
(Note: Have all the line from Voodoo 1 to Voodoo 5. Though no leaked Rampage prototype).
Parent
No search engines? (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Microsoft bashing is de rigeur for slashdot.,. (Score:4, Funny)
continually minimizing microsofts effort to the world of personal computing...
Microsoft did not have TWO, they had at least 4 of the above.
Microsoft deserves credit for #36 and #24 as they were directly responsible for bringing them about.
Parent
Commodore C64 (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Commodore C64 (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Commodore C64 (Score:5, Interesting)
They also seem to have picked the cameras almost at random, those models would never have been on my short list when buying a camera. I'd look to the Cannon digital SLRs or the Nikon coolpix range for models that changed the market.
They missed the Space Invaders machine, and the digital watch.
Business hardware has been left out, wheres the Xerox machine, fax machine, mainframe, or printer?
I do think they have a pretty good list, though. Particularly the older stuff.
Parent
Re:DSLR (Score:3, Insightful)
Most of the items on the list were chosen not because they were the best (which is subjective anyway), but because they were the first or because they significantly changed our world or the market.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Stupid list, they forgot C64. How many programmers haven't learnt programming using C64 BASIC?
There isn't many "real" programmers out there. Remember Turbo C and Turbo Pascal? Pascal in 29K of RAM, and likely not a programmer coming on line today can say "Hello" in 29K. Forget about a compiler, linker, editor, libraries, debugger and full type checking in that 29K.
My peeve on the list is Lotus 123... it was a copy... VisiCalc and Supercalc were better and more original, 123 was a "borrowed" concept fr
Re:Commodore C64 (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
50 best, 50 worst... ho, hum (Score:5, Funny)
That is not the outcome ! (Score:5, Informative)
Voodoo 3 sucked. (Score:5, Informative)
It was, in short, the beginning of the end for 3dfx. Why would you promote that?!
Re:Voodoo 3 sucked. (Score:5, Interesting)
Sadly, they started drinking their own cool-aid too much. Voodoo 3 was THE bankrupting card. It was too expensive, too poor on features (16 bit rendering when everyone else was 32 bit), too poor on RAMDAC speed (poor output quality) and way too late to market. To make matters worse, their marketing department was making laughable attempts at convincing customers that they didn't really need all those extra features (what people want is render SPEED not QUALITY! Oh you already have 60fps? Hmm). You could buy an nVidia TNT2 for the same price, and it had the same performance, better quality output and better quality rendering. Even the drivers were better. I think Voodoo3 vs TNT2 marks the point where 3dfx LOST the fight. Strange that the list says it marks the pinnacle.
Sadder still, rather than recovering, they brought out the Voodoo 4/5 which added very little apart from a huge power supply burden, massive cards, and even higher costs, right when upstarts like nVidia and ATI were bringing out damn cheap, fast and single chip cards that did better.
As an aside - the CEO who bankrupted them by running the company on pure hopes and wishes alone (Greg Ballard) did the same to the company I worked for (SonicBlue/S3/Diamond). I suspect they brought him in due to his history of running a market leading company into the ground in less than a year. Job done.
Parent
Misleading title (Score:5, Insightful)
And even with that in mind I think the list is bogus. With criterias like:
Re:Misleading title (Score:4, Insightful)
Instead, implementations that changed how we use technology ARE on the list. For example cell phones = Motorola StarTAC; mp3 = iPod; tcp/ip = Hayes modem/Compuserve/Netscape; television = Tivo and so on.
The purpose is not immediately clear maybe, but there's a reason why it's the 50 "best" *products* and not 50 best technologies.
Parent
One page link (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.pcworld.com/printable/article/id,13020
West Coast Bias and Revisionist History (Score:5, Insightful)
Where for example (as others have pointed out) is the Commodore 64, the "Model T" of computers? It's simply the single most successful computer of all time, selling more than 33 million units of a single "model" of machine, more than any other single model of machine.
And while they mention the Amiga 1000, where's the Video Toaster and Lightwave 3-D, the software that revolutionized 3-D animation on reltively cheap low-power machines? Oh sorry, that technological marvel came out of Kansas, and nothing high-tech comes out of Kansas, right?
And here's something that was developed on the west coast that deserves praise (is it on the list?) The Palm Pilot -- without which, we'd probably not have half of the other items that *are* on the list.
It always seems to me that the editors of such "lists" only remember what they themselves "played with", and if they didn't touch it with their own hands, it didn't exist and therefore isn't worth mentioning.
Also, exciting innovations such as the mouse which are made at academic think-tanks or research departments of large companies are also not worth mentioning. Do you think these editors bothered to research anything happening at MIT's media lab? Of course not. MIT after all, is on the EAST coast.
This list makes me sad that we're already forgetting important history from just a few years ago. In twenty years, people will be saying the Bill Gates invented the computer and taking that as fact.
Re:West Coast Bias and Revisionist History (Score:4, Insightful)
("west-coast bias". Snicker...)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Again, there's a heavy West Coast Bias, as if the IBM PC and Apple and Microsoft were the only tech companies that ever existed.
Read a map. The IBM PC was developed in Boca Raton, Florida, two counties away from the southeasternmost tip of the United States.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_PC [wikipedia.org]
And here's something that was developed on the west coast that deserves praise (is it on the list?) The Palm Pilot -- without which, we'd probably not have half of the other items that *are* on the list.
Read the article. The Palm Pilot is #18.
Also, exciting innovations such as the mouse which are made at academic think-tanks or research departments of large companies are also not worth mentioning. Do you think these editors bothered to research anything happening at MIT's media lab? Of course not. MIT after all, is on the EAST coast.
Read the title. The list is for the 50 best tech products. Innovations in academic labs aren't products yet, until they are sold commercially. The list does include products that were inspired by MIT's Media Lab's work.
50 Best Tech Products of All Time (Score:5, Insightful)
1. the hearth
2. the knife
3. the rasp
4. the stirrup
5. the saw
6. the steam engine
7. the light bulb
etc.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Nothing too contentious in there (Score:4, Interesting)
Software choices (Score:5, Insightful)
Flash drives (Score:5, Insightful)
Huh? (Score:5, Informative)
45. Red Hat Linux (1994)
Picking a watershed Linux distribution is tough. Literally hundreds have existed over the years, though only a few have advanced the state of the art. Red Hat was critically important for beginning the move (however tentative) toward making Linux beginner-friendly and easier to install. While development of Red Hat was discontinued in 2003, it directly spawned successors like Ubuntu, which aim to make desktop use of Linux commonplace.
WTF!? Ubuntu is based on Debian, not Red Hat. Also, development of Red Hat didn't stop in 2003 - it was just split into RHEL & Fedora. Pretty har to take an article that flawed seriously.
Huh? (Score:3, Insightful)
Compuserve?... That bloated, expensive, pretend internet thing that became AOL... that Compuserve? In the top 50?
*Checks date to see if it's still 1st April*
Re:Huh? (Score:4, Informative)
Prior to the days when kiddies expected a specific Compuserve interface that was bloated, there were the days that Compuserve was a rather robust community BBS system that was complete text based interface giving access to extensive forums, news searches, stocks, weather and other services.
Even MS required beta testers to have Compuserve IDs to participate in Beta programs prior to the Web.
For its time Compuserve was the king of online communities and did it better than anyone else. Remember this is from the timeframe when the 'Internet' was limited to gov and edu exclusively, and not everyone had access, compuserve was the 'commercial' version of connecting regular people.
Also this is where Al Gore comes into play when he worked to get the internet opened to everyone, and thus resulting in there no longer being a need for Compuserve as a content provider or connection point.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The basis of their ranking (Score:3, Interesting)
one major example they chose amiga over commodore 64. commodore was a precedent for all to follow. many programmers who are regularing slashdot have cut their teeth on that. we have seen the rise of the cracker scene and groups on that. many people, trend and groups who have set today's IT made their advent on c64.
but those people chose amiga. why ? because they are graphics/designer/publishing people. and all the choices reflect that - almost a third of what they chose as software and hardware are publishing/designing items.
a very biased, and failed article that is.
Time started in 1980, apparently... (Score:4, Insightful)
My List (Score:5, Interesting)
1) Personal Computer
2) Word Processing
3) Ethernet LAN
4) Mouse
5) Graphical User Interface
6) Laser Printer
In other words, products from Xerox PARC.
And behind the internet ... (Score:4, Insightful)
The list in misnamed (Score:3, Interesting)
Where's the wheel? (Score:4, Funny)
Once again where's the HD? (Score:4, Interesting)
How about giving props to IBM, Seagate etc where it's due. Not only did they give you fast, reliable, RANDOM access (remember we used reel to reel tape before this) but its been increasing in capacity and speed ever since, not to mention going DOWN in price. 100GB laptop drives anyone? It wasn't that long ago when 'high performance' disk drives were in the 9 and 18GB range for disk arrays. Not for laptops.
Remember without it, you'd be trying to boot your PC with punchcards, floppy disks or tape.
-Storage Admin since 1982.
Re:Bad list, forgot all of the most important tech (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
7 Mins to start an OS? That is an exaggeration?
Neither my Windows or Linux boxes take that long to start, even with Vista. In fact, currently, my Linux Boxen take on average longer than the Windows ones, that is including starting X.
and the typical "besides, my tools don't work on Vista"
Tell me, what is wrong with Re-Compiling the tools
Re:mmmh (Score:4, Insightful)
--
Thrower awayer of one TRS-80 Coco II and III, 5 years ago after powering it up and realizing I was nostalgic for my PC sitting on my desk.
Parent
Re:mmmh (Score:5, Insightful)
Even though some products can't be bought anymore, they still were very important in their times, and things wouldn't be the same today if they hadn't existed. Stuff like the NES (revived video gaming), Epson MX-80 (brought printing to the home), Doom (popularized FPS), Netscape Navigator (pushed the WWW) et al. were major milestones in tech that made what we have today possible.
Parent
Re:mmmh (Score:4, Insightful)
Even still I would say that something like the cell phone, or ethernet is more important than Netscape Navigator.
Parent
Re:mmmh (Score:5, Funny)
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