The problem is that because most of the writers who made this list lived in the '70's/80's/90's they chose consumer technology from that era rather than looking at the long-term historical perspective. How can the Powerbook 100 be the #1 gadget of all time when compared with for instance the Abacus, which made financial transactions possible throughtout the eastern world for milennia. I think this list is very short-sighted and most items on here would not appear on a list compiled 100 years from now.

Yeah, but the Abacus didn't have that little puzzle game where you moved the parts of the picture around until you got, like, the sun or something.

The nail clipper. Invented how long ago? Still useful and still nobody's come up with a better solution.

Also, keep in mind this was MOBILE PC magazine...so their focus is on...(say it with me)...mobile computing devices.

Comes in every imaginable size and material. Most often free. More uses than you can shake a....

Duh

Apple didn't have a clue about portables in those days.

From the rules they set down on page one of the list:
"It has to be a self-contained apparatus that can be used on its own, not a subset of another device. The flashlight counts; the light bulb does not. The notebook counts, but the hard drive doesn't."

Why is #5 the computer mouse?
Why is #38 the compact flash card?

Neither of these are "self contained apparatus that can be used on its own".

OK it's a picky matter about a trivial listing in a magazine that I'd never heard of but still...

It is true that the PB 100 was *manufactured* by Sony, but the design is clearly Apple. Consider that the PB 100, 140 and 170 came out on the same day, and these three machines were the first laptops to feature the "palm-rest" keyboard configuration, where the keyboard is close to the display, with the trackball well underneath. The trackball may have been replaced by a trackpad, but Apple's keyboard placement in these first three PowerBooks was adopted immediately by the entire industry and persists to this day.

The PB 100 was also an evolution, strangely enough, of the original Mac Portable - it had a reflective screen which you could read in broad daylight (although it was backlit as well), it had a low-power 16 Mhz CMOS 68000 processor, which helped battery life, and it had a lead-acid battery (no memory effect.) It also had the same screen resolution (640 x 400) as the Mac Portable. However, it was many (9?) pounds lighter than its "luggable" predecessor (which had multiple, large, heavy, lead-acid batteries, and an 8-hour battery life!)

The PowerBook 170 had a reflective active-matrix screen which was also reminiscent of the original Mac Portable.

The PB 100 shaved weight and size off by dropping the internal floppy drive - which was continued in the Duo and arguably future Apple laptops as well!! The 140 and 170 had floppy drives, however.