Ask HN: What are the great ideas in computing?

Alan Kay has said that "the computing profession acts as if there isn't anything to learn from the past...it's very characteristic of a pop culture. Pop culture lives in the present; it doesn't really live in the future or want to know about great ideas from the past."

http://www.cioinsight.com/c/a/Expert-Voices/Alan-Kay-The-PC-Must-Be-Revamped151Now/

So what are some of the great ideas of computing?

Where/how does one go about finding them? There is so much trash and "pop culture" in the majority of what's been written in our field (both popular and research works), that I don't know how to find the important ideas.