What was the last truly innovative thing you witnessed? (lemmy.world)

submitted 3 days ago by HappySkullsplitter@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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Born in 1890, my great-grandfather had great-uncles who fought in the Civil War. He saw the invention of the automobile, the airplane, two world wars, and saw the Apollo 11 moon landing a month before he died.

I was born in the 80s, I have been trying to take stock of how much life has changed since then. Cable television? Satellite television? Cell phones to smartphones? The internet? Life hasn't seemed to have made much progress. When we get down to it life isn't radically different now than it was in 80s. Just hoping there is more that I'm simply not noticing

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[-] runiq@feddit.org 31 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

I'm a software guy, so I'm gonna go with 'free compilers.' Back when every company was keeping their secret sauce close to their chest, RMS turned around and released gcc for free. That was... new, to say the least. It paved the way for much of the software you see eating the world today.

this post was submitted on 19 Feb 2025

65 points (91.1% liked)

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