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Floppy disk
Creator - Alan Shugart
while floppy disk was technically made in 1967, they were only available for company's and weren't commercially available until 1971.
Essentially a floppy disk job was to contain and transfer data to and from computers. The reason for its name is the disk flexibility. eventually this became outdated by USB and hard drives which could do a much better job. -
Email
Creator - Ray Tomlinson
the original experiment was to see if two computers could send a message to each other and later ballooned into what it is today with everyone having a personalized internet address being able to send each other messages. the very first message ever sent was (qwertyuiop) which is all the letters on the top part of a keyboard. email is definitely influential as we still use it today. -
Microprocessor
Creator - Ted Hoff
while technically they were made in 1969, they were finally commercially available in 1971. it's essentially the brain of the computer it's in a way a CPU. before Microprocessor were made each component of the computer needed its own integrated circuit chip which made them run slower and made them bulkier/heavy. this item is irreplicable as you'll find every current day computer still use these. -
Cray 1 supercomputer
Creator - Seymour Cray
the title is pretty self-explanatory but essentially it was a type of computer that would run faster and more complicated problems like climate modeling, nuclear simulations, and cosmology analysis. these were an important type of computer for certain business and the government but not for the average consumer at the time. they were even as tall as a person. As most technology goes it became somewhat outdated but the concepts of it are still used today. -
Atari (2600) console
Creator - Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney
While not the first ever home gaming console it was one of the earliest ones that really popularized video games it revolutionized the idea of digital but interactive experiences. The game came out with either combat or Pacman depending on the retailer. The reason for its name is an inside joke. back in the 70's 2600Hz was the tone frequency you could use to crack (or "phreak") old phone systems into giving you free long-distance calls.