Give it a year or two and the iPod will beat out the Sony Walkman TPS-L2 released in 1979 as the greatest gadget of the last 50 years. PC World’s Top 50 Gadgets of the Last 50 Years is a trip down memory lane for me as I can remember nearly all of them. Don’t worry, my memory stopped at the Atari 2600 VCS. :)

While I agree that the Walkman was probably the greatest gadget ever invented, I must say, the iPod gives it a run for its money. True, maybe without the ground work of the Walkman, the iPod may have never been, but without the iPod, digital music would have never become as popular as it has. With uniting the MP3 into more units then the Compact Disc could have ever hoped, the iPod was at the forefront of making that happen. Prior to the iPod, it was all on the Rio and only true geeks had that and no one else. What Apple has accomplished in just four years since its initial release in 2001 is amazing.

There are other great memories on the list like the C64 (man I loved that thing!), the Palm Pilot, the Sony CD player, the StarTAC cellular phone. All items I once owned and loved and I’m sure you’ll find something on the list that you could say the same about, too. Take a look and enjoy your trip down geek memory lane.

Tags: apple, ipod, sony, walkman, gadgets, top 50, palm pilot