50 Greatest Gadgets of the Past 50 Years

[Alpha]

We're living in the golden age of the gadget. Don't believe it? Check your pockets. Odds are you're carrying a portable music player, an electronic organizer, a keychain-size storage device, a digital camera, or a cell phone that combines some or all of these functions. And you'd probably be hard-pressed to live without them.

http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,123950,pg,1,00.asp

 

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Here are my favorites from their Top 50 list (not in any particular order)..

1) Walkman (had to have one of these back in the day)

2) Atari Video Computer System

3) Zenith Space Command

4) Nintendo Game Boy

5) Commodore 64

6) Connectix QuickCam

7) Learjet Stereo-8

Sony CDP-101

[olaf]

that was the stupidest list ever. the robot dog? atari and then playstation2? 5 different cell phones? 4+ portable music devices? why is it not "Top 50 Electronic Devices You Really Don't Need That Have Been Available For 50 Years!"? another useless list, they could've generalized the items, but then they'd be left with the "top 5 out of the 8 unique inventions over the past 50 years"

[CJ Jackson]

there is one gadget I own in the top 50 and I had it about 3 years ago and I'm still using it.

 

32. Microsoft Intellimouse Explorer (1999)

 

Click to view full-size image. The first mainstream optical mouse earned its place on our list by eliminating one of computer technology's most pervasive annoyances: the accumulation of gunk inside a mechanical mouse. Optical mice actually existed long before Microsoft's groundbreaking product, but they were expensive and required special pads. The Intellimouse Explorer (and its simultaneously introduced siblings, the Intellimouse Optical and the Wheel Mouse Optical) brought gunk-free pointing devices to the great unwashed masses and their great unwashed desks (and laps, and armchairs, and many other places you'd never dream of using a mechanical mouse). Read our original review. Photo courtesy of Microsoft.

[Ryuken]

i have one of these

 

Diamond Multimedia Rio PMP300

The Nano it ain't, but Diamond's Multimedia Rio PMP 300 started the revolution that produced portable music players such as Apple's iPod (#2). This first portable MP3 player ran on a single AA battery and packed a whopping 32MB of storage--enough for about a half hour of music encoded in the MP3 compression format. Read PC World's original review. Photo courtesy of The Adrenaline Vault.

[Agozer]

Sony Playstation 2, the Game Boy, and Commodore 64/128 in random order, although Commodore might win on my list.