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the Gadgets that have really pressed our buttons by Perkal

"Forget tin-openers, mobile phones or personal stereos, the laptop computer has topped a list of the greatest gadgets of all time. The Apple Powerbook 100, which was created in 1991 as the first lightweight PC, topped the poll, pushing the TV remote control and Sony Walkman into second and third places.

The list was chosen by the staff of US magazine Mobile PC as the all-time greatest gadget.

But experts yesterday said there are some notable exceptions from the top 10, like calculators, camcorders and transistor radios.

The magazine staff compiled the list and specified that gadgets also needed to be a 'self-contained apparatus that can be used on its own, not a subset of another device'.

'In general we included only items that were potentially mobile,' said the magazine.

'In the end, we tried to get to the heart of what really makes a gadget a gadget,' it concluded.

Lecturer Dr Mike Reddy, who specialises in future technologies and robotics, said the list was obviously compiled by 'geeks' because obscure gadgets have made it into the top 10 at the expense of more popular hardware.

At number seven is the little-known US Robotics Pilot 1000 - dating from 1996 this device is described as a hand-held pencentric computer.

Other devices that ranked highly in the magazine's chart include the Diamond Multimedia Rio 300 MP3 player from 1998 and the CDI Mechanical Mouse dating from 1970.

Dr Reddy said, 'I think it's a very eccentric list and I think that's probably explained by the magazine that did the poll.

'The kind of things they have picked makes me think they have a geekie clientele. If you asked people in the street they would probably not recognise at least half of the things in the top 10.

'Of that top 10 list the Sony Walkman is probably the only one that most consumers would recognise. This is a list by and for a particular section of society - people who really enjoy something that works well and looks good and has simple functions.'

Gadgets had to have moving parts or be electronic to be included and the Abacus, which first appeared in around 190AD, was the oldest device to make the list.

Dr Reddy, of the University of Glamorgan, said though he would choose an 'infinite number' of gadgets to top the list ahead of the Powerbook 100 he could understand why it had made the No 1 spot.

'I've got several Powerbook 100s in my collection of old computers. It was the first laptop to have a trackball on the keyboard.

'Trackballs for a while became the thing to have because using a laptop with a mouse was very confusing as you had a load of things you had to clip on the side and so on.

'So the trackball made a lot of sense and it was very ergonomically designed - the keyboard was pushed back from the front.

'Before the Powerbook 100 all the keyboards were at the very front of the computer.

But the Powerbook 100 pushed the keyboard back to give you somewhere to put your wrists. After that lots of other laptops adopted the same ideas.'

Gadgets which could be said to feature surprisingly low down in the list include the original telephone (23rd), the Nintendo GameBoy (25th), and the Pulsar quartz digital watch (36th).: The top 10 gadgets according to Mobile PC:1. Powerbook 100, 1991 The laptop with the keyboard moved towards the screen to create a wrist rest and a place for the trackball. 2. Zenith Space Command TV remote control, 1956 Used ultrasonic sound to control the TV and remained popular until the emergence of infra-red in the 1980s.

3. Sony Walkman, 1979 The antecedents of the MP3 player can be traced to the device that first made music on the move a reality.

4. Motorola Startac, 1996 The first mobile phone to fit into your pocket and the ultimate fashion statement of the late '90s.

5. CDI Mechanical Mouse Model 4-101, 1970 Made the cursor keys redundant, until dust clogs up the mouse and you go back to using the old-fashioned method.

6. Casio QV-10 Digital Camera, 1996 Dubbed the first mass marketing success for the digital camera this could store up to 96 images and boasted 76,800 pixels, not many by today's standards.

7. US Robotics Pilot 1000, 1996 The hand-held pen-activated computer never proved as popular on this side of the Atlantic as it did in its country of origin.

8. Diamond Multimedia Rio 300, 1998 The original MP3 Player that took over where the Walkman left off resulted in a legal battle with a recording industry claiming it facilitated piracy.

9. Atari 2600, 1977 To anyone born in the early '70s this was their first and probably most memorable games console - think Pacman and Space Invaders. 10. Tivo Series 1, 1999 Remote control handset and box about the size of a video recorder that automatically finds and digitally records TV programmes.: So is the list of 100 best gadgets really for geeks?:Woman's view: Hannah Jones WHAT use is a gadget if its name doesn't even give you a clue to what it is or does? What's a Tivo Series 1 anyway? And isn't a Powerbook 100 something you read that teaches you how to live a better life?

Talk about a bloke's list - where's the Carmen Rollers, the eyelash curler, those cute little compacts that come fitted with a light so you can apply your lippy in the dark?

For heaven's sake, where's the underarm battery- powered shaver?

What about the kettle? Even executives haven't found a fancier way to make a simple cup of tea.

Gadgets smagde- its - give me substance over style any day of the week ... even if it does come in a handy pocket-sized package. That's what we girls carry big bags for, silly.: Man's view: David Williamson JUST a glance at this list should convince you we live in fascinating times. Evolution is supposed to have taken millennia and much mud, but we've gone from carrying a Sony Walkman to wearing iPods in less time than it takes a digitally animated lamb to shake its tail.

The gadgets in the top 10 are like fossils - when we look at them we see the defining moments when the modern laptop, mobile phone and digital camera were born.

Few people may be excited about the Powerbook 100 today, but in the computer world, its arrival was as sensational as penicillin. At last, somebody had found a way of packaging the boggling power of a PC into something that could fit into a briefcase. We're just beginning to realise the full implications of living in a society where individuals can carry around a portable library, a printing press and a multimedia studio under one arm. I think it's a terrific time to be alive."

This article was published on Sunday 17 December, 2006.

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