In the rapidly changing world of technology, it's not uncommon for one product to hang around for a year or two, only to be replaced by another newer, flashier offering—one with more bells and whistles—that relegates its predecessor to the trash heap of history. However, over the past two-plus decades, there are some products—from the likes of IBM, Intel, Apple, Sun Microsystems and AMD—that have pushed the industry forward and left a lasting imprint. For example, there's the first PC, the first significant x86 chip, the first workstation and the first mainframe, not to mention Microsoft's Windows DOS operating system. Most of these technologies are no longer in use, but their DNA can be found in today's products, while others are still pushing on. By no means a comprehensive list, this is just a few of the products that, while some of them may be gone, they shouldn't be forgotten.
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Technology That Shouldn't Be Forgotten This Memorial Day
by Jeffrey Burt
IBM 701
This is the mainframe computer that started it all off, more than 50 years ago. And now, a half century later, IBM's mainframe business is not only still a viable one, but is growing, with new workloads being added to the massive systems.
IBM Model 350 Disk File
The IBM Model 350 Disk File was the first hard disk drive. It had 24-inch disks, could store about 4.4 MB of data, spun at 1,200 rpm and provided storage capacities of five, 10, 15 or 20 million characters. Rolled out in 1956, it was used with the IBM 305 RAMAC.
IBM 5150 PC
Rolled out in 1981, IBM's 5150 was the first of the real PCs and the basis for what would be known as the "IBM-compatible computer."
Apple Macintosh
Coming out three years after the IBM 5150, Apple's Mac changed the way people looked at computers, using a mouse, icons and GUI rather than the command-line interface of the IBM-compatible systems.
Intel i386
Launched in 1985, the Intel chip was the first of the 32-bit x86 architectures and first used by Compaq. Twenty years later, it was still in use, though mostly in embedded systems.
MS-DOS
The first of the Windows operating systems, MS-DOS 1.0 was introduced in 1982 to run on IBM PCs. However, Bill Gates kept the rights to the OS, setting the stage for Microsoft's dominance.
Sun1 Workstation
Sun shipped its first Sun-1 workstation in 1982. The Andy Bechtolsheim-designed system included a 16-bit Motorola chip that runs a Unix operating system and offered high-resolution graphics and Ethernet networking capabilities. Fewer than 200 were built, according to Sun.
Unix OS
Developed in 1969 at Bell Labs, the operating system—though squeezed by Windows and Linux—is still cranking along, thanks to IBM with its AIX variant, HP with HP-UX and Sun with Solaris.
Handspring VisorPhone
Handspring's VisorPhone, released in 2001, was among the first devices to bring together the cell phone and PDA to create a smartphone, paving the way for the BlackBerrys, Treos and Apple iPhones of the world.
AMD Opteron
Certainly not much of a legacy technology at 6 years old, the server chip—which offered such features as an integrated memory controller and 32- and 64-bit capabilities—forced Intel to abandon its plans to push Itanium as the 64-bit computing platform of the future and raised the issue of energy efficiency in technology.
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In the rapidly changing world of technology, it's not uncommon for one product to hang around for a year or two, only to be replaced by another newer, flashier offering—one with more bells and whistles—that relegates its predecessor to the trash heap of history. However, over the past two-plus decades, there are some products—from the likes of IBM, Intel, Apple, Sun Microsystems and AMD—that have pushed the industry forward and left a lasting imprint. For example, there's the first PC, the first significant x86 chip, the first workstation and the first mainframe, not to mention Microsoft's Windows DOS operating system. Most of these technologies are no longer in use, but their DNA can be found in today's products, while others are still pushing on. By no means a comprehensive list, this is just a few of the products that, while some of them may be gone, they shouldn't be forgotten.