Re: Apple II: Second Best Tech Product of All Time!

[pausch@saaf.se (Paul Schlyter)]

In article <1175623371.633432.167810@n59g2000hsh.googlegroups.com>,
mmphosis <markstock@mail.com> wrote:

> PC World's Second Best Tech Product of All Time: Apple II
> 
> http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,130207-page,2-c,technology/article.html
> 
> I found this on slashdot.org ...
> 
> http://hardware.slashdot.org/hardware/07/04/03/0225236.shtml
> 
> "PC World picks the 50 best tech products of all time. Apple holds
> down seven places in the list, Microsoft two, and open source software
> (Red Hat Linux) one. The top five, according to PC World, are:
> Netscape Navigator (1994), Apple II (1977), TiVo HDR110 (1999),
> Napster (1999), and Lotus 1-2-3 for DOS (1983)."

Those articles both have an amazing frog perspective.  While they say
"tech products" they really mean "computer tech products".  And while
they say "of all time", they really mean "during the last few decades".

Think of it!  If one would make a list of "the 50 best tech products
of all time", and if one was serious both about "tech products" and
"of all time", wouldn't it be an unforgiveable error to omit things
like:

- the telegraph and the telephone
- the train and the automobile
- the aeroplane
- the refrigerator
- mining (without that, no metals, and no computers!)
- the boat (quite old, true, but didn't we say "of all time"?)
- agriculture (also very old, but didn't we say "of all time"?)
- taming fire (even older, but didn't we say "of all time"?)
- and, of course: the wheel !!!!

Without these things, there would have been no Netscape, no Apple II,
and none of the other 50 products in PC World's list.

Is modern man losing perspective of his own history?


A list of "the 50 best tech products of all time" would of course
include several computer related items.  Such as the computer in
general, the personal computer, the Internet, the mobile phone,
and perhaps a few others.  But the rest would be non-computer
related items that nevertheless are very important for us.  After
all, the computer is a fairly recent product which has been around
us for a very short time - and that must be accounted for, if you're
serious about the phrase "of all time"....


In the year 2000, I saw a list which reminded me about this list.
That list contained "the best music from the last 1000 years".
Guess what?  Some 95+ % of all the music pieces there were from
the latest 30-40 years.... so much for "1000 years".   It would be
interesting to see which ones, if any, of todays hits people will
still listen to some 1000 years into the future....  <g>

-- 
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