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The 50 greatest gadgets of the past 50 years
(PC World)
Updated: 2005-12-27 11:29 24. MITS Altair 8800 (1975)
It sported blinking
lights and dipswitches, and you assembled it yourself from a $397 kit sold by an
Albuquerque mail-order company that had formerly been in the model rocket
business. The Altair was, in other words, a gadget, but it was also the first
popular home computer. Not very useful at first, it soon inspired an entire
industry of upgrades, peripherals, and software--and prompted computer geeks
Bill Gates and Paul Allen to form a company to sell a version of the BASIC
programming language. (They called their startup Micro-soft, later ditching the
hyphen.) Also present at the creation: MITS documentation manager David Bunnell,
who went on to found a bevy of successful computer magazines, including PC
World. The Computer Science Club at the University of California at Davis has
more information, including a photo of the MITS.
25. Radio Shack TRS-80 Model 100 (1983)
In the early 1980s, when people talked about "portable computers" they
meant luggable monstrosities like the 24-pound Osborne I. Then Radio Shack
introduced the Model 100, the first popular notebook. Starting at $799, this
4.25-pound featherweight boasted built-in word processing and other apps, and
its internal modem let road warriors get online at a zippy 300 bits per second.
More than 20 years later, the full-travel keyboard on the TRS-80 is still pretty
impressive. Like all other TRS-80s, the Model 100 is lovingly documented at Ira
Goldklang's TRS-80 Revived, and at this fan site. Photo by Ira Goldklang.
26. Nintendo Game Boy (1989)
 In the old days, kids couldn't wait till they were old enough to get
their first two-wheeler. Now they yearn for their first Game Boy. The original
handheld, as shown at CyberiaPC.com, featured a black-and-green LCD and a slot
for matchbook-size game cartridges. Later versions became smaller and more
powerful but maintained backward compatibility with the original, so you could
take your favorite games with you as you grew. The Game Boy's lock on the
handheld game market remained virtually unchallenged--at least until the Sony
PlayStation Portable arrived this year. Photo courtesy of Nintendo.
27. Commodore 64 (1982)
The best selling computer of all time still appears to be the Commodore 64:
Estimates of this PC's sales range from 15 million to 22 million units. The
first C64 cost $595 and came with 64KB of RAM, a 6510 processor, 20KB of ROM
with Microsoft BASIC, 16-color graphics, and a 40-column screen. (How times have
changed!) It also was the first PC with an integrated sound synthesizer chip,
according to Ian Matthews of Commodore.ca. Photo courtesy of the Computer
History Museum.
28. Apple Newton MessagePad (1994)
The Newton PDA had
the dubious distinction of being lampooned in Doonesbury, thanks to its
less-than-spectacular handwriting recognition. At nearly 1 pound and costing
$700, it was too big and pricey for most users, but it paved the way for
smaller, simpler devices like the PalmPilot and the iPod. At the time, there was
no cooler gadget to be found. For more, see this description and photo of the
Newton.
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