The following clause is fromPC World .

When we sat down to chooseThe 50 Best Tech Products of All Time — which was excerpted byMacworldthis week — one fact was clear : No matter which products we selected , we would hear from umbrageous hoi polloi informing us that we had all messed up .

Know what ? That ’s one of the reasons we compiled our inclination — to get a nostalgic , passionate debate run . And in the days since April 2 , when we posted the clause , C of people have made the pillowcase for a bevy of merchandise that we neglect , at venue including the story ’s forum thread , thepoll embedded in the story , and external gabfests such as thisSlashdot treatment . The conversation also preserve at anarray of blogsall over the Web .

The long , farseeing tilt of ironware and software that folks call back we should have honored includes some Cartesian product that we seriously considered and others that we never contemplated — but probably should have . Dozens of item have been mentioned by at least one person , including relative newcomers that may appear on succeeding lists of all - sentence great ( the Nintendo Wii ) , forget gems that are obscure but worthy ( Deluxe Paint III for the Amiga ) , and old - timers we were a little startled to get word that anyone have it away ( Prodigy ) .

For further focal point on the great and the near - majuscule , do n’t escape ourslide show , comprise even more picks by reader who suppose that we missed the boat on some truly outstanding products .

Numerous people told us that we should have admit the pursue 12 products in our Top 50 — and even though we drop these detail from that chemical group , we hereby ( tardily ) recognise their vastness .

Apple LaserWriter

Any intellectual technical school buff would affirm that the optical maser printing machine was one of the most authoritative merchandise categories in the recent eighties and early 1990s .

We chose one such printing machine — HP ’s workhorse LaserJet 4L , from 1993 — for our list . But several people who read our story marvel why no similar realisation was extended to Apple ’s LaserWriter , which hit the mart in 1985 . This $ 7,000 machine was n’t the first mainstream laser printer — HP ’s first LaserJet ship in 1984 — but its use of an innovative Thomas Nelson Page - rendering applied science call PostScript , devised by an unsung company named Adobe , provide the LaserWriter to grow by far the most professional - wait output of its era .

Along with the Mac and Aldus PageMaker ( No . 28 on our list ) , the LaserWriter establish the desktop - publishing revolution , which continues to this day .

Atari 800

Atari pleader identified not one but two machines that they cerebrate we should have extol in our listing . One was the Atari 800 , which — to give us our due — we did fete last year as the14th - best PC of all sentence . Among the 800 ’s virtue ( as pointed out by forum member Jmjohnson ): It had advanced graphics , polyphonic sound , and multitasking ; and it could treat fear - inspiring amounts of RAM via bank - switched memory . As for me , the first computer I ever buy with my own money was the much tinny Atari 400 — which had most of the 800 ’s features but cut price by let in one of the worst keyboards in data processor account .

Atari ST

Last twelvemonth , this 1985 scheme ( specifically , the 520ST ) show up among 25 PCs that we listed as runner - up to theTop 25 PCs in history . TheST lineboasted a low price , plentitude of memory , and a graphic user port back when that was n’t a give . ST machine also had build - in MIDI port , which made them a major hit with musicians . But our favorite thing about them was their nickname , which cite Atari CEO Jack Tramiel : “ the Jackintosh . ”

Commodore 64

When you dis Commodore loyalist , you hear from them in droves . They told us that theC64should have been on our tilt of the top 50 tech products . The 1982 automobile had a down in the mouth Mary Leontyne Price tag ( $ 595 ) for its metre and a whopping amount of RAM ( 64KB — hence the Cartesian product ’s name ) . And with 30 million units sell over its 11 - year production tally , it ranks as one of the well - selling technical school products in story . If you have one in your closet , you ’re not alone .

Hewlett - Packard HP-35

Some of the most beloved , most intensively used information processing system in history were n’t computers — they were calculators .

HP’sHP-35 , released in 1972 , was the company&38217;s first pocket calculator . At $ 395 , the machine — the first scientific reckoner — was a wonder that was worth every penny . ( As forum penis Jackifus rightly said , it was a pocketable lilliputian powerhouse that changed the globe . ) It was n’t long before competition , economies of scale , and technical innovations drive the price of similar modeling down to a fraction of the HP-35 ’s cost , but it continues to be fondly remembered to this day .

Optical Mouse

We spent a wad of clock time at the role of PC World talking about whether a mouse should make our Top 50 — and if so , which one — but our list in the end ended up mouseless . Several people interrogate that call , with optical mice receiving particularly warm recommendations . ( Forum member Drjoebdavis say us that the optic mouse should be not simply on the list but high-pitched up on it . ) Microsoft ’s 1999 Intellimouse Explorer may have been the first modern , mainstream optic model , but it was hardly the first one . ( I get risible look when I tell multitude that I owned an optical shiner in the recent eighties , but it ’s true : I yield something like $ 100 for Mouse Systems’state - of - the - artistic creation rodent , which was keister - less but worked only when it scurried around on a especial pondering mousepad . )

Original 128 KB Mac

We may bePC World , but hey , we make out Macs ; and it ’s no stroke that 1986 ’s Mac Plus is No . 14 on our list of the all - clock time outstanding products . Even so , some people thought we gave short shrift to that example ’s groundbreaking harbinger , the original 1984 Mac . How total it did n’t make our lean ? primarily because its dearth of memory—128 KB just was n’t enough — made working with it a floppy - swapping incubus .

OS/2 Warp

In the belated 1980s , everyone thought that IBM ’s OS/2 would be the operating surround people would utilise once DOS had melt down its trend . Then came Microsoft Windows 3.0 , which became a megahit despite possessing absolutely none of OS/2 ’s technical excellence . IBM kept plugging away , though — and eventually releasedOS/2 Warp 3.0 , a highly evolved ware that ran both OS/2 and Windows apps and draw in a small but fiercely consecrated group of fans . Thirteen year later , some of them told us we choked by not putting Warp on our inclination .

Sinclair ZX Spectrum

If you grew up in the United States , chances are you never heard of Sinclair ’s ZX Spectrum computer .

If you ’re British , however , there ’s a good chance it was your first home PC . A immense hit in the UK , theSpectrum — which was originally known as the ZX82 — sported colour graphics , up to 48 KB of RAM , and a weirdly rubbery keyboard . one thousand thousand were sell , spawning one of the largest software program library of the time and conferring Commodore 64 - alike historical significance on the system in its home area .

Smalltalk

In our online public opinion poll , lots of people identified the programming lyric known as Smalltalk as their No . 1 product of all sentence . slew and lots and mountain and slew of people , really — so many that the results are just a shade suspicious . But Smalltalk , which sprung from Xerox ’s Palo Alto Research Center and has beenaround for decadesin various interlingual rendition , has unquestionably been extremely influential : It was an objective - orientate nomenclature back when that was an arcane theme . A New look of Smalltalk , Squeak , is one of technologies that power the $ 100 XO ( One laptop computer Per Child ) notebook computer plan for use in emerging countries .

Visicalc

Lotus 1 - 2 - 3 may have moved more IBM PCs than any other spreadsheet in the eighties . But Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston’sVisicalc , which debuted in 1979 on the Apple II , was the first microcomputer spreadsheet — and one of the first app that anyone thought of as a Orcinus orca app . A bunch of kinsfolk remember we should have given props to it for those reasons alone .

XTree

A file manager utility for DOS ? What could be more mundane ? really , 1985 ’s XTree was so useful that we heard from multiple mass who rated it as one of the best technical school intersection in history . ( You bang an ancient public-service corporation must have been something exceptional when it inspires its ownfan varlet . ) XTree died in 1995 , but a current intersection for Windows known asZTreeis an unapologetic clone that brings XTree ’s retro - yet - potent goodness into the forward-looking world .