Probably most impactful, I wrote the linux driver for HP's (now PMC Sierra's?) SmartArray RAID controllers, of which many millions were sold, most inside HP servers.
Back in 2009-2012, I built a cyclekart[1] in my driveway, and documented it on youtube[2]. Back then almost nobody was building cyclekarts, apart from the original inventors, the Stevensons. Many people have told me my videos inspired them to build their own cyclekarts, (maybe because I succeeded despite obviously not knowing what the hell I was doing) and today there is a thriving worldwide cyclekart community. I don't know for sure how much difference my videos made, but I like to think I had a hand in popularizing the hobby.
In the hobby software world, I made Space Nerds in Space[3], but I don't think that was very impactful, as nobody plays this game because it's too hard to gather together a crew, but as part of making that game, I made gaseous-giganticus[4], which creates textures for gas-giant planets, and has been used by people creating mods for Kerbal Space Program, and I haven't seen a better gas giant texture generator out there yet, despite that there are some obvious (but difficult) avenues to pursue.
Probably most impactful, I wrote the linux driver for HP's (now PMC Sierra's?) SmartArray RAID controllers, of which many millions were sold, most inside HP servers.
Back in 2009-2012, I built a cyclekart[1] in my driveway, and documented it on youtube[2]. Back then almost nobody was building cyclekarts, apart from the original inventors, the Stevensons. Many people have told me my videos inspired them to build their own cyclekarts, (maybe because I succeeded despite obviously not knowing what the hell I was doing) and today there is a thriving worldwide cyclekart community. I don't know for sure how much difference my videos made, but I like to think I had a hand in popularizing the hobby.
In the hobby software world, I made Space Nerds in Space[3], but I don't think that was very impactful, as nobody plays this game because it's too hard to gather together a crew, but as part of making that game, I made gaseous-giganticus[4], which creates textures for gas-giant planets, and has been used by people creating mods for Kerbal Space Program, and I haven't seen a better gas giant texture generator out there yet, despite that there are some obvious (but difficult) avenues to pursue.
[1] https://cyclekarts.com/ [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaNHLvHGONc&list=PLcSUyKz3gf... [3] https://spacenerdsinspace.com [4] https://github.com/smcameron/gaseous-giganticus