Best offers
Exclusive Interview: Nvidia's Ian Buck Talks GPGPU
With Snow Leopard and Windows 7 both offering GPGPU capabilities, we wanted to talk to Nvidia's Ian Buck. Not only is he one of the fathers of Brook, the programming language ultimately adopted by AMD/ATI, but the head of Nvidia's CUDA group as well. Read More
-
Beamforming: The Best WiFi You’ve Never Seen
Forget 802.11n Draft 2.0. The future of video-capable WiFi depends on a signal-boosting technique called beamforming. We put the pioneers in this frontier through some real-world testing to find out which technology is going to change the wireless world. Read More
-
Exclusive Interview: Going Three Levels Beyond Kernel Rootkits
Today we have the pleasure of chatting with Joanna Rutkowska, one of the top computing security innovators in the world. She is the founder and CEO of Invisible Things Lab (ITL), a boutique computer security consulting and research firm. Read More
Partners
The Games selection
action :
Yoyo the Star
Yoyo is a young girl who recently graduated and dreams to become a movie star (don't we all). You'll have to guide her on the path to stardom,...
|
crazy :
Xiao Xiao 7
A great fight scene from the animation movies Xiao Xiao.
|
Sponsored links
QOTD: What's the Most Influential Hardware?
Next news- Email |
- Print |
- Comments (122) |
- Share
If you've been computing for a decade or longer, you'll know that there have been many companies that have come and go.
However, just because a company doesn't exist anymore, doesn't mean the device or devices it made didn't make a permanent and big impact to how we use computers today and what we use them for. Many of the companies that helped change the landscape of computing still exist today.
Things like, the mice, the joystick. Yes of course, the 3D accelerator--and we all know what company really set things in motion in that space! If you can't come up with a device, that revolutionized the computer, maybe you can come up with a device that changed the way you use a computer. Today's QOTD comes from Tom's Hardware reader xNEM3S1Sx.
The question of the day is: What is the most influential piece of hardware ever made?
Source : Tom's Hardware US
Sponsored links
Related articles
-
This Week's Hot News: March 9 - 13
With the hype surrounding Windows 7, people are paying close attention to each new build of the operating system in-the-making. The latest build is is 7048 and the changes just keep coming-- especially when compared to the public beta build 7000. Build 70
-
Hot News: February 23rd-28th
Make a 3-core Phenom II a 4 Core! Sony's PlayStation sores; Windows 7 Updates. Don't miss this week's hot news. Check out our weekend wrap-up.
-
This Week's Hot News - April 20th to 24th
This week's hot news is going to be a little different. We're inviting you to help us test out a new tool called JogTheWeb designed for wrap ups.
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.
The mouse
NIC
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.
hard drive..
cpu..
the mouse. it gives me a good start at work.
CPU...mainly Pentium by Intel
Xerox for giving us the GUI and the Mouse.
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.
the CD burner changed the world
Motherboard - what can you do without one?
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?
Motherboard - what can you do without one?
Have the circuits not printed on pbc but just floating all around.
sliced bread changed the world
3dfx's Voodoo I and II; my first high dollar peripheral purchases, and the video cards that launched 3D gaming.
The Most Influential Hardware ever is the Z80 processor.
It is still used in tons of stuff.
How many lay people do you know can operate a computer using only the keyboard?
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.
the CD burner changed the world
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.
Pentium D
Internet.
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
The Core i7!
Anyways, I say CPU. It is the brain.
The transistor.
8085 and 8086
There is not one single most important thing invented!
A computer is a combination of many inventions in one.
Inventions like:
I'd first say The invention of melting metals, creating conductors and resistors.
2: Electricity, cause without it, a computer is just a steel case with some board, wires and black stones inside.
Provided there exists electricity, then
3: MORSE. Because the pc today exists all thanks to the morse code (or electric pulses sent over a cupper cable) (morse lies on the base of the signals CPU, RAM, and CD/DVD technology, as the first sign of digital code). Later telephony allowed more quality sound to travel.
4: the invention of the transistor.
5: The invention of the TV
6: Invention of the radio
7: Invention of the calculator
8: Invention of the operating system or software
9: Invention of hardware like Graphics card, CD-ROM, cpu, GPU, RAM VRAM, powersupply, input and mobo.
A mouse and keyboard are all important, but the first computers could do without, and where just boards with cables connected to tubes.
The Audio Hardware in general, specially stereo (or better) speakers, let's face it, they are the underdog of the peripherals, but they really add a lot to the experience, there are black and white games, even games with no graphics, but without music and sound effects they'll be very very boring
[citation][nom]echdskech[/nomHow many lay people do you know can operate a computer using only the keyboard?[/citation]
I know plenty of people who can operate a computer without a dedicated keyboard or a mouse. It is called a touch screen. The HP Touchsmart PC comes to mind...
Duhh people... it's THE USER
CD Burner
The original Macintosh, back when Apple was about computers and not fashion. It brought the mouse and the GUI to the mainstream (though the concepts were taken from Xerox).