Top 10 technology products that changed the world

Today is the 30th anniversary of IBM's PC, which kicked off the mainstream personal computing revolution. You'll be hearing more about that beast later on in this article, because it sparked off the idea for this week's Top 10.

There have been many ideas that have shaped our world, but when it comes to information technology, most are very recent. We've also kept this top 10 list to actual products that hit the market, otherwise we'd be splitting hairs to an atomic level.

The transistor is barely a generation old, but has fundamentally changed the lives of almost everyone on the planet. But an examination of its intricacies and successively smaller builds is better suited to a scholarly journal.

There were a lot of very near misses. This list contained over 20 suggestions and whittling it down was a long, and occasionally loud, process. Shaun and I lost personal favourites along the way.

In my case Visicalc didn't make the final cut. It's a pity, because that application more than any other really sold the business world on the idea of computing for everyone. In Shaun's case, it was the Alto from Xerox PARC, which was truly the genesis of current computing systems but never made it out of the lab.

No doubt everyone's got their favourites, so let us know yours.

Honourable Mention: HP-35 calculator
Shaun Nichols: There were any number of personal calculating devices that emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s, but we settled on the HP-35 for what it indicated about the direction computing would take.

Pocket calculators had been around in Japan and the US for several years at the time, but they had mostly been limited to basic arithmetic functions and were not suitable for more complex tasks such as trigonometry. Some very early models were even beaten in speed and accuracy tests by Japanese abacus users.

When the HP-35 was released, the perception of the calculator and personal electronics in general changed. Now there was a powerful electronic computing device which could fit in the palm of your hand. Engineers and scientists who had previously relied on the slide rule could now use a calculator to perform complex computations.

It also foreshadowed a phenomenon which would control the evolution of technology for the next four decades: the concept of the personal computing device.

Iain Thomson: There are many in the profession who still mourn the loss of the slide rule, and I can see their point.

Nevertheless, you can't fight progress and the calculator has the advantages of speed, ease of use and always being right, so long as the initial data is input correctly. The HP-35 was a pivotal bit of kit in winning over those who hankered for simpler days but were persuaded by the enormous advantages of technology.

While it might look like something out of a bad science fiction movie, the HP-35 was stunningly advanced. It could switch between modes, carry out basic programming by the user and crunch numbers faster than anything else available to the common man.

Although it ate batteries quickly, it was technically pocket-sized and portable, making it the iPhone of its day in terms of geek cred.

Those of you who think of HP as a printer company, or the world's largest PC vendor, would do well to look at HP's early history. For decades HP survived by turning out little gems like this, and you have to wonder where that engineering sparkle that used to drive the company went.

Honourable Mention: Windows 95
Iain Thomson: Shaun wanted this one off the list from the get-go but I dug my heels in. Yes, Windows 95 was essentially Apple 84. Douglas Adams had that right, there was nothing new here.

But this misses the point. People didn't necessarily want to use Windows 95, but Microsoft was running the vast majority of corporate systems by the middle of the 1990s and that was what most people were stuck with.

Windows users forget what life was like before Microsoft got around to installing a graphical user interface. If you knew what you were doing, DOS and the early versions of Windows were perfectly functional. If you didn't, they were a pain in the fundament to navigate and you wished you had an Apple instead.

With Windows 95 everyone in offices who wasn't prepared to do a bit of learning finally had their lives made whole a lot easier. They also started to consider that maybe one of these newfangled things in the home might not be a bad idea.

Shaun Nichols: Windows 95 might have been the first GUI system many people used, but it also put many of them off PCs for years.

For all its innovative features, there were plenty of bugs and performance issues that led to many foreheads becoming acquainted with the top of a desk. Really, Windows 98 was the OS Microsoft had promised with Windows 95.

That said, it was also a landmark release, perhaps for its timing if nothing else. Windows 95 reached the market when many people were buying their first home computer and getting their first taste of the internet. It also helped to give Windows an identity as its own operating system rather than just a shell that ran on top of DOS.