Solid body electric guitars- the first models have been in continuous production and are still available.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fender_Telecaster
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibson_Les_Paul
There were earlier “electric guitars” but I’m thinking all inventions build on previous creations. I don’t think you’ll find many pure answers to OPs question. I think the closest you’ll find is going to be an advancement that produced a single step change in design that flattened the innovation curve forever after. I think the microwave oven was a great example.
Electric fuses also come to mind. Little has changed since 1890.
Velcro? Inspired by nature’s invention
https://www.microphotonics.com/biomimicry-burr-invention-velcro/
Also outdoor grills don’t seem to have changed much other than the material used to keep the fire going.
The 707.
RSS Feeds
Really? I tried a bunch of time and don’t see the appeal. I haven found any like category filtering so I can’t subscible to like just tech or whatever. I think I’m doing it wrong
So good, that Google abandoned their reader
Dildos
Silicone might be better than wood
The bowl.
Ceramic might be better than wood
I appreciate the operation you’re running here
I think sewing machines would count? They certainly got a hell lot more “portable”, but the basic design hasn’t changed much since the 1880s. Those things are little mechanical marvels
nearly
If you think C is perfect then I think your mother dropped you one too many.
“nearly” is, by definition, not.
Maybe not perfect upon conception, but after a couple of decades from common adoption, the bycicle really didn’t change much. Sure, you can use lighter and more advanced materials, you can add an electric motor to it (though I wouldn’t classify it as a bycicle) but you can probably take a 100 years old bike and it would work just as good as a modern one.
Who needs gears when you can build the mechanical reduction into the wheel size.
Have you seen belt drive bikes? Not the electric ones. Pretty cool stuff, much lower maintenance. Also internal gear hubs. There’s still innovation happening in bicycles to make them stronger against abuse
It also too about 100 years to reach the modern design of rubber tyres and a drive train, with the rider sitting slightly forward of the rear axle and well behind the front wheel.
The pointed stick.
Steel capped ends
No, it was later improved by using different materials, better tools to make it and hardening it with fire.
Maybe FM synthesis, it revolutionised the sound of the 1980s and music production as a whole
The 3.5mm audio jack. It’s so fundamentally simplistic from a manufacturing standpoint and circuitry standpoint that any headset you throw at it will work identically without fail (the key innovation being the speakers or headphones where the analog signal is sent to).
Technically 1/4” jacks were first. 1/8” only to make 1/4” smaller.
Potato peelers. The ergonomic handle was a big step forward, yes. But the basic design hasn’t (and likely won’t) change.
Wasn’t expecting this answer. Can you elaborate?
Show this to a person from 1900 and other than the plastic, nothing has changed.
I would happily argue that the plastic is a step down; metal potato peelers last a lot longer.
The metal ones last longer, but the Oxo ones (like above) don’t hurt as much.
Saw a post just today with a 1000 year old folding chair. Looked pretty much identical to the ones used today. Lost the post but kept the picture.
Microwave oven. It sort of just…appeared, and the design didn’t change much.
In my Flat we still have a microwave that does not have a rotating plate. Insteadt it has a spinning rotor in the roof that deflects the waves in order to cook food evenly. It works well but it is needlessly complicated compared to modern microwaves.
Most microwaves have a spinning wave stirrer in addition to the rotating plate. From the description here, it just sounds like either your plate rotation motor is broken or you’ve got a weirdly simple microwave.
This is the first time I’ve heard that they have a wave stirrer. I’ve never seen one in person.
Usually it’s not inside the same chamber as the food as then it would be a nuisance to clean. You need to take a microwave apart to see the wave stirrer.
Weirdly simple. It does not have a rotation motor. It is quite old.
