QOTD: What's the Most Influential Hardware?

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[citation][nom]okibrian[/nom]GUI, GUI, GUI! Without it I would still be using my Commodore 64 and we would not see anywhere near the amount of PCs in the home as we do now. Also, and I hate to say this, Microsoft had a VERY big impact as well. We had no real standard before Windows. Standards = more hardware and software.[/citation]

As much as I agree that a GUI is very important on the modern computer a GUI is software, not hardware.
 
I'm going to say the record player. Without it, we might not have the storage media of today. Records were superseded by tape, tape was superseded by magnetic media of other kinds such as hard drives, and of course, we also have CD's, DVD's, Blu-ray, and for a time, HD-DVD optical formats. Considering how much storage we use and just how much our demand for storage has been increasing, we owe a lot of thanks to the humble record player.
 
Portable laptop computers.

CD burners, the GUI, the mouse, nic, and graphics cards are all great, but may I point out we now have portable laptops, netbooks and tablets when just 4 or 5 decades ago computers occupied entire rooms.

If I could go back in time, I'd bring my TI-89 calculator!
 
I love all the responses about electricity, radio, and GUI in a question about hardware. Of course a PC is just an expensive step stool without electricity but it's origins didn't have anything to do with computers, and it's certainly not hardware.

Anyway, I think the modem was the most influential. It brought the internet to the masses, and where would we be without the net? If my internet service is down (or like when my modem died last month) my PC is essentially a game console. If there was no internet I likely wouldn't have any interest in owning a computer and I think most people wouldn't either. Kinda like the 80's when the only thing I could do with one was play Where's Carmen Sandiego, and 30 minutes of that was 25 minutes too much.
 
Alright real quick it says "QOTD: What's the Most Influential Hardware?" read it again.....influential. not the most needed or necessary parts, but what created the biggest impact on computers.
 
The modem.

From the 103 to Hayes (didn't you love those??), ISDN, and now supercheap ultrafast DSL/Cable modems.

Modems have forever connected us.
 
The multithreaded CPUs.
I never thought I could play a game on one screen and watch a movie on another screen at the same time. Both in HD.

The CPU really changed the computing experience for me along the years.
 
A great influence was brought by the Hard Drive.
Remember working on FDD's ?
Remember how great it was for the first time to save your work on a 10MB HDD?
I remember when the first 1GB HDD was announced, I was a kid, and was wondering how far will capacity go...

It made a big difference. From 820MB to 3.2GB, 10Gb, then 40GB, 80 then 500Gb. And now the SSD's or other technologies, when (if) they will become mainstream, they will change again the way we use computers.

The mouse and modem were significant also, but the huge progress made by chip makers in shrinking the transistors on the die, from 350um down to 45nm and even lower, this had the most important role, as it is involved in making everything in a computer. From cpu, gpu, memory, chipsets, to peripherals (thumb drives, laser printers, network equipment, LCD monitors), everything contains these chips.



 
My choice would not be a single piece of hardware, but something that makes up our cores.

The transistor and the technology to shrink it is the most important piece of hardware ever made. Without transistors, we would still be using vacuum tubes with its massive space complexity and power consumption.
 
This is a difficult question, but I would say that AMD's CPUs are the most influential hardware. AMD initially just built Intel-designed CPUs as a second source manufacturer. When they no longer could build CPUs under license from Intel, they began reverse-engineering Intel's CPUs. The AMD K5 is where I think the real shift took place -- it was AMD's first in-house CPU. About the same time that the K5 was released, computer prices really started to fall. I believe that it was AMD's pressure on Intel that led in great part to the current affordability of PCs.
 
The keyboard existed in forms before like a typewriter. I'd have to go with the mouse. The monitor comes to mind, but it's not really computer "hardware" to me.

The mouse is something that might not really have been invented should certain people have not existed on this planet. We could all be using touchpads or joysticks!
 
CPU because other components are either derived from it (GPU, PPU...) or work so as to support it(storage, RAM....). And then there's interface.
 
God gave the human kind the opportunity to learn, develop and create things, just like He did even before we existed.
It's our responsability to use this gift in a proper way in order to help others and ourselves as learning gods, knowing that we are our Heavenly Father's children.
He is giving us this lifetime to improve ourselves to, one day, become like Him.
You choose...
 
Sorry but this QOTD is really dumb... it's like asking what is the most influential part of a car...
As every part is needed (including the FAN and the wires...) this question makes no sense.
Maybe the question should have been "what was the better HW improvement".
 
Since i started out on home computers using tapes for data storage and floppy disk drives where to expansive in that era i stepped in the 90's using only tapes (you know regular audio tapes that could also be copied in a regular audio deck and or copied from broadcasters).

The big change for me came when i got myself a whooping 21 meg hard drive and never had to "run cas r" and go get coffee watch the news play some drinking game grab some sleep and get more coffee before a program was loaded again.

The second big change would be a shared position between broadband internet and the www.
Finally no more giant bills (or slightly less giant bills) because of the location of the BBS i used to roam.
 
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