100
GREATEST OF ALL TIME32 MAXIMUMPC DECEMBER 2007
53
WINDOWS 95 (1995) At last,
PC users got true multitasking
and a less heinously ugly UI with the
launch of Win95. Long fi le names! A TCP/
IP stack! The Rolling Stones’s “Start Me
Up”! What’s not to love?52
DELL ULTRASHARP
2405FPW (2005) This giant
LCD offers numerous video inputs and
unimpeachable quality, and it made
large-scale, widescreen graphics afford-
able to the masses.51
INTEL PENTIUM (1993) Intel
fi nally dropped its long-held
numerical naming scheme (due to
trademark issues) with the launch of the
Pentium. This was also the fi rst Intel chip
to feature a dual pipeline and, with its 64-
bit data path, took baby steps toward
64-bit computing.50
UBUNTU (2004) At long last, a
Linux for the masses became a
reality in the form of the easy-to-install
and (relatively) easy-to-use Ubuntu. Dell’s
even preinstalling it on PCs as a Windows
alternative.49
MIRABILIS ICQ (1996) Instant
messaging got its start with ICQ.
Believe it or not, the now-cumbersome
app is still being actively developed.48
ATI RADEON 9700 (2002) The
most powerful graphics board of
its time, ATI’s top seller was also the fi rst
card to sup-
port DirectX
9’s fully pro-
grammable
shaders.47
STARCRAFT (1998) The best-
selling computer game of ’98 is
one of the most enduring strategy titles of
all time. Nine years on, it’s still being used
in professional gaming tournaments, espe-
cially in Korea, where StarCraft matches
are regularly televised.46
INTEL 430FX TRITON (1995)
Socket 7 (see #35) wouldn’t work
without a motherboard for it to sit on.
Intel’s original Triton chipset also stabilized
a frustrating PC industry, then marred by
buggy third-party chipsets and incompat-
ible technologies.45
3.5-INCH FLOPPY (1983) Sure,
they were slow and prone to fail-
ure, but consider the alternative: 5.25-inch
fl oppies. This hard-shelled storage stan-
dard at least got us through a decade and
a half of portable storage.