50 Greatest Gadgets of the past 50 years
The beginning of the year is always a good time to look back at the past year. Since I haven’t found any interesting lists of gadgets released in 2005, here’s a PC World article that looks back a bit further:
While the obvious iPods and RAZR phones are there, the list also includes some classic gadgets you may remember—or your parents may—like the first Sony Walkman portable stereo, the PalmPilot 1000 PDA, and the first mass-produced transistor radio, pictured at right. And don’t forget the TRS-80 Model 100, the laptop computer I spent my teenage years dreaming of owning.
As with all “top 50″ lists, it’s open to second-guessing—I for one think there are too many gadgets from the last decade on the list, and what’s the silly robot dog doing there?—but it’s fun to take a look back at the gadgets that were so exciting when they first appeared.