February 18, 2005
Inventory of the Toolman
Mobile PC has just released “The Top 100 Gadgets of All Time,” a 5-part article: ( 1 2 3 4 5 ). I think gadget #37 is a device that annoyingly splits a Web page into five parts.
It’s interesting to see what place gaming and creativity have here. The Atari VCS rocks in at #9: “We’ve got two words to describe the majesty of this device: Yar’s Revenge.” The Game Boy is #25. Representing creative media systems is the 1960 Etch-a-Sketch, which they call “the world’s first handheld with a fully graphical user interface.” Lite-Brite also makes the list, and there are other game systems and creatively inclined devices among the computers, communications devices, and implements. It’s also interesting to see what a gadget is, according to Mobile PC. The preface explains that a gadget has to “have electronic and/or moving parts of some kind,” “be a self-contained apparatus,” and “be smaller than the proverbial bread box.” “Silva compass,” “sextant,” and “space pen,” are on the list, but “spectacles” aren’t, even though they do generally have moving parts. Also, it seems like there’s an implicit rule that gadgets should be nice, or at least non-lethal. The US Army’s contribution is a can opener. While the Taser X26 is on the list, the Colt Peacemaker isn’t. Thanks to Dan Schmidt for pointing out the article.
February 22nd, 2005 at 4:13 pm
Slashdot noticed, too.