QOTD: What's the Most Influential Hardware?

[tuannguyen]

If you've been computing for a decade or longer, you'll know that there have been many companies that have come and go.


QOTD: What's the Most Influential Hardware? : Read more

 

[scsidude2]

The full color graphic monitor. Not much of a world if you can't see it. With the monitor you can see any picture ever taken.

 

[ehanger]

The mouse

 

[adamovera]

NIC

 

[stryk55]

The USB port. Besides the keyboard and mouse, no other piece of hardware has lived up to the expectations set out for it as well as USB. Almost any external imput device connects this way. It truly is a UNIVERSAL connector.

 

[IntelDiesel]

hard drive..

 

[xpont8]

the mouse. it gives me a good start at work.

 

[icepick314]

CPU...mainly Pentium by Intel

 

[HighHandz]

Xerox for giving us the GUI and the Mouse.

 

[IzzyCraft]

The thin coating on stuff made by ibm that prevents our stuff form shorting out but that's not really a single piece of hardware.

 

[superhighperf]

the CD burner changed the world

 

[Greatwalrus]

Motherboard - what can you do without one?

 

[echdskech]

I'd say transistors... but if we're talking about bigger things, i'd say the mouse. what sets it apart from the obviously important things like cpus, disks and such is that it (and gui, but that's software) was what I believe enabled computing to penetrate the consumer market.

How many lay people do you know can operate a computer using only the keyboard?

 

[IzzyCraft]

[citation][nom]GreatWalrus[/nom]Motherboard - what can you do without one?[/citation]
Have the circuits not printed on pbc but just floating all around.

 

[alvine]

sliced bread changed the world

 

[mschlenker]

3dfx's Voodoo I and II; my first high dollar peripheral purchases, and the video cards that launched 3D gaming.

 

[Spathi]

The Most Influential Hardware ever is the Z80 processor.
It is still used in tons of stuff.

 

[zerapio]

[citation][nom]echdskech[/nom]How many lay people do you know can operate a computer using only the keyboard?[/citation]
On just the OS I can do pretty much the same with a KB than with a mouse. Things start getting challenging when you try to use apps as many don't have shortcuts for all the functions.

 

[Tindytim]

[citation][nom]superhighperf[/nom]the CD burner changed the world[/citation]
If you say that, then you obviously don't know about the floppy swapping BBSes of the 80's. Software piracy was big even before the internet.

 

[gosefroba]

Pentium D

 

[cadder]

Internet.

 

[eklipz330]

i wud say the most influential PERIPHERAL would have to be the keyboard, simply because you can survive without a mouse, but not a keyboard.

the most influential hardware would have to be the either the cpu or power supply. a cpu can either make or break the performance of a computer[pent d to c2d], and a terrible power supply won't let you do anything at all

 

[Vettedude]

The Core i7! Anyways, I say CPU. It is the brain.

 

[zozzlhandler]

The transistor.

 

[vgdarkstar]

8085 and 8086