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Macintosh Classic
The first Macintosh computer to be under $1000($800 for schools). Apple was struggling after Steve Jobs left, and tried to aim for the high-cost, high performance market, but this failed miserably, leading to resignations. By 1990, they released a low cost machine and it actually had very high demand. I believe this invention impacted low costing computers future on the market. -
Linux
Linux is a family of open source operating systems based on the Linux kernel made by Linus Torvald. It is still popular to this day and it is especially used on Android phones as well as computers. -
Windows 95
Produced by Microsoft, this operating system became extremely popular. The GUI and simplicity of operating it made it very popular over its previous version. It had taskbars, notification areas, and most importantly the famous "start" button. It is one of the most important releases in the history of personal computers. -
IEEE 802.11 WI-FI
The standards were created in 1997 by Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and it has had amendments to it. Those standards(with the amendments) are still used to this day and are used for printers, computers, routers, modems, and more to all communicate with each other without the need of wires. This has definitely impacted us greatly, because imagine having to connect everything with ethernet, or being on the go and not having wi-fi like we do today. -
iMac G3
The iMac was the first major product release under the returning CEO, Steve Jobs. It is credited with saving Apple from financial disaster. Instead of using floppy disk drives or serial ports, it swapped to CD-ROMS and USB ports. This most likely changed computers forever. I still saw these around when I went to middle school in 2011 in our library.