HP-65 makes All-TIME 100 Gadgets list.
#1

HP-65 on All-TIME 100 Gadgets list.

#2

Hmmh, zero votes? The TI SR10 got a lot more ...

#3

The SR-10 has 61 votes by the last count.

wait.

Doesn't Joerg Woerner have 60 employees?

#4

That list is so lame. Looks like it was written by someone who is A: enamored with electronics and B: born yesterday. Sorry, but half the stuff on that list sucked when they were new, and are totally forgotten. Real stuff is left out. Leatherman is included, by not the swiss army knife?

And the cameras? Where the hell is the Brownie? Too much digital $%#$$# in the list, in every category.

Most of those things I never bought, because they were clumsy emergent tech or dumb fads. Examples: electric toothbrush, pedometer, Apple Newton, electric razor (I had one and hated it. always cut your face up and left a rash). Sony Mavica. What a waste. Film was better and still is often better today! Bluetooth headset. What a stupid annoying Borg contraption that encourages a combination of public insanity and anti-social behavior.

Belong on the list: Handi talkie, pager, space pen, credit card (though technically not a gadget!, zippo, velcro, (where the hell is the zipper and the button then! Heck, where's the front-closure bra?) dirt devil, smoke detector, pacemaker, hearing aid, scratch the dirt devil--it ain't that great and I haven't bothered to go buy one.

Edited: 26 Oct 2010, 12:08 a.m.

#5

And where the hell is the mousetrap? File under "health?"

#6

And why is practically every Apple device on there, even the total crap failures? Looks like a shill...

#7

right on bill; And how about the p-38 can opener or the electric guitar? You can do rock n roll on an acoustic, but you can't have feedback. Gore Tex is no more generic than his credit card, and more likely to save your life. He included lithium-ion camera batteries but not the the Kodachrome film that captured the most iconic images from nearly the entire period the list refers to.

Mainly, i didn't like it that i don't even recognize about half of the useless gadgets on his list. One of us was on a different planet.

One thing that does belong there is the LED, especially Norm's RRRREEEEEDDDD ones.

#8

The HP-35 and HP-65 calculators are in the Smithsonian museum. I saw them there about 10 years ago.

Namir

#9

... and there are two Kodak cameras but no AIBO. Funny.

#10

Quote:
And where the hell is the mousetrap?

"Where" it is is before 1923. 1897, to be exact.
#11

Agree with the inclusion of Nikon F, even though it certainly wasn't a "first", it was the arguably the most influential of its type. The Kodak Instamatic certainly belongs on the list as the first of a whole new breed of "easy to use" cameras.

Glaringly missing is the original Leica, which started the whole 35mm thing, which continues to this day.

What the heck is AIBO?

#12

The title of the article is intended as a pun, capitalizing TIME, (referring to the magazine), but perhaps misleading some, while the subtitle clearly states "the 100 greatest and most influential gadgets from 1923 to the present".

#13

FYI, Aibo is a robo-dog (not doc! ;) made in Japan some years ago.

There are a number of very arbitrary selections (e.g. no Nokia phone but lots of Motorola), of course, and several important gadgets missing completely like the transistor radio, the HP-35, LCD, the HP-41C, the MTB, Shimano's bicycle gearings, ... ...

#14

Quote:
And why is practically every Apple device on there, even the total crap failures? Looks like a shill...

I would have thought two of the most significant Apple products would have been the Apple II and the original Mac.

What I find missing is the Atari 2600.

#15

Quote:
and several important gadgets missing completely

How about the microwave oven? My kid would probably starve to death without it. :-)

The first mass market electric refrigerator? Where's that?

#16

Yes. I expected to see, at the very least, the Apple II. The author must be really young or totally uninformed to have missed those.

#17

Quote:
How about the microwave oven?

Serious omission.
Quote:
The first mass market electric refrigerator? Where's that?

You are right. I thought the date might exclude it, so I checked, While refrigerators were produced in tiny quantities prior, the Frigidaire came out in 1923, GE in 1927. The GE is probably the first truly mass-produced one. I have a 1935 ball-top model. I used it up until 1975, at which time it still worked. Been in storage since.

Come to think of it, it's been in storage almost as long as it was in use! I wonder if it still works now...

#18

Holy cow, you're right! They put all the new crap in and left our the truly revolutionary stuff.

I think the writer must be 16 years old...and not a student of technolgy history...

#19

Interesting! 1897!

#20

...yes! I suppose they are--even if only parenthetically--part of the HP-65

#21

Definitely electric guitar. Although the first might pre-date 1923 depending on how you measure it. Lloyd Loar built an electric viola while at Gibson...

#22

Per WiccanPedia (as you once referred to it, Bill):

Quote:
The first spring-loaded mouse trap was invented by William C. Hooker of Abingdon Illinois, who received US patent 528671 for his design in 1894.[1][2] James Henry Atkinson, a British inventor who in 1897 invented a prototype called the "Little Nipper", probably had seen the Hooker trap in the shops or in advertisements and used it as the basis of his model.[3]

#23

Dennis,

I have far less employees and all but one are in their 20s! They use their TI-89's and probably don't know about the SR-10.

One guy is in his 40s, he uses a HP 15C. Couldn't convince him to switch to a TI-30X Pro and retire his HP 15C (aka me selling it on e**y).

Cheers,
Joerg

#24

The first electric guitar ever invented was the Rickenbacker A-22 "Frying Pan," in 1930. It was marketed, produced, and sold from 1932 to 1939.

Regards,

Mark

Edited: 26 Oct 2010, 9:50 p.m.

#25

But it DOES in fact include the transistor radio. The list contains the Regency TR-1, the first commercial transistor AM radio from 1954 ($50 in 1954, equivalent to about $400 today). It used four transistors, and TI was part developer.

The list is odd. One item on it is the Motorola HT-220 VHF-FM handie-talkie that was found everywhere 35 years ago. There's a short but surprisingly accurate reference to the US Army's WWII SCR-300 walkie-talkie and SCR-536 handie-talkie.

#26

As I was reading the list I thought that there were far too many electronic widgets on the list; however, then I saw that my beloved Model 100 was listed and I reconsidered!

Some that aren't on the list but should be in my estimation are

1. The chainsaw, and in particular the gasoline powered chainsaw, which were invented in the mid 1920s, just in time to fit in the list. The devices changed the way logging and woodcutting for firewood were done.

2. The endoscope because its use found cancer in my ascending and transverse colon before it had spread beyond the colon and saved my life.

3. The electric typewriter and in particular the IBM Selectric.

4. The variable speed windshield wiper and washer.

Edited: 26 Oct 2010, 10:42 p.m.

#27

I'm proud to see our product on the list, the Flip video camcorder.

Nice to be in good company :)

When I was a kid (already a calculator nut in grade school - I'd play with the HPs & TIs on the display stands in dept store, got an APF scientific in 6th grade, TI30 in 7th, TI58 in 8th and HP41C as senior in HS), I figured I might end up designing calculators - a grade schooler didn't really know how Moore's law would progress and that many such devices would be sold for pocket change today.

Still I ended up doing a 'pocketable' electronic product so I didn't land too far off my goal :)


Bill Wiese
San Jose CA

#28

Not sure if these would crack the top 100, but it was fun to be reminded of them:

Heathkit assemble it yourself TV: Sure TVs around for years before, but I'll bet most people didn't have the courage to spend that kind of money for something they couldn't guarantee would work when completed. BTW, if it were considered a gadget, the Sears build it yourself house from their catalog would fall in this same category.

Franklin REX: Maybe an "ahead of its time" candidate instead. To have all that power--similar to a Palm Pilot--in the PCMCIA form factor, was great. I used mine everyday until they couldn't run on newer operationing systems.

And, why is TiVo on the list but not the original consumer videocassette recorder instead? That's what really changed consumer behavior--timeshifting of TV watching. TiVo is just the digital implementation of the same idea.

#29

Of the SR-10 they say

Quote:
the SR-10 was the first handheld calculator capable of computing square roots and other basic slide-rule functions



I thought that honour went to the HP-35?
#30

The HP-35 was the first to compute trigonometric and exponential functions.

#31

Hmmm, I'm not quite sure what you're trying to say, the HP-35 can do everything the SR-10 can do and more. Are you saying that if calculator B can do a subset of calculator A functions, then by stating "basic functions" it is a "first"? IMHO the HP-35 falls in the "handheld" category and is "capable of computing square roots and other basic slide-rule functions". I personally think that the fact that it can do more is irrelevant, it still remains "the first handheld calculator capable of computing square roots and other basic slide-rule functions". (Finseth states July 1972 as HP-35 release and Datamath states November 1972 as SR-10 release).

#32

You're right of course. I simply wasn't aware of the late release date of the SR-10 due to its antique look. So the text here in that gadget list is definitively wrong. Thanks for the information.

#33

This is stupid. The worst part is that you can't even vote for the HP-65 since the vote function is "inconveniently" not working on its page. That is why there are zero votes. Also, that really sucks about the misinformation on the SR-10.

Mark



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