The abacus, a simple counting aid, may have been invented in Babylonia (now Iraq) in the
fourth century B.C.
The Antikythera mechanism, used for registering and predicting the motion of the stars and
planets, is dated to the first century B.C. It was discovered off the coast of Greece in 1901.
Arabic numerals are introduced to Europe in the eighth and ninth centuries A.D. Roman
numerals remain in use in some parts of Europe until the seventeenth century. The Arabic system
introduced the concepts of the zero and fixed places for tens, hundreds, thousand, etc., and
greatly simplified mathematical calculations.
John Napier, Baron of Merchiston, Scotland, invents logs in 1614. Logs allow multiplication and
division to be reduced to addition and subtraction.
Wilhelm Schickard builds the first mechanical calculator in 1623. It can work with six digits, and
carries digits across columns. It works, but never makes it beyond the prototype stage. Schickard
is a professor at the University of Tubingen, Germany.
Blaise Pascal builds a mechanical calculator in 1642. It has the capacity for eight digits, but has
trouble carrying and its gears tend to jam.
Joseph-Marie Jacquard invents an automatic loom controlled by punch cards.
Charles Babbage conceives of a "Difference Engine" in 1820 or 1821. It is a massive steam-
powered mechanical calculator designed to print astronomical tables. He attempts to build it
over the course of the next 20 years, only to have the project cancelled by the British government
in 1842. Babbage's next idea is the Analytical Engine - a mechanical computer that can solve any
mathematical problem. It uses punch-cards similar to those used by the Jacquard loom and can
perform simple conditional operations.
Augusta Ada Byron, the countess of Lovelace, met Babbage in 1833. She describes the
Analytical Engine as weaving "algebraic patterns just as the Jacquard loom weaves flowers and
leaves." Her published analysis of the Analytical Engine is our best record of its programming
potential. In it she outlines the fundamentals of computer programming, including data analysis,
looping and memory addressing.
Konrad Zuse, a German engineer, completes the first general purpose progammable calculator in
1941. He pioneers the use of binary math and boolean logic in electronic calculation.
Colossus, a British computer used for code-breaking, is operational by December of 1943.
ENIAC, or Electronic Numerical Integrator Analyzor and Computer,
is developed by the Ballistics Research Laboratory in Maryland to assist in the preparation of
firing tables for artillery. It is built at the University of Pennsylvania's Moore School of
Electrical Engineering and completed in November 1945.
Bell Telephone Laboratories develops the transistor in 1947.
UNIVAC, the Universal Automatic Computer (pictured below), is developed in 1951. It can
store 12,000 digits in random access mercury-delay lines.
EDVAC, for Electronic Discrete Variable Computer, is completed under contract for the
Ordinance Department in 1952.
The IBM 360 is introduced in April of 1964 and quickly becomes the standard institutional
mainframe computer. .
Gordon Moore and Robert Noyce found Intel in 1968.
Bill Gates and Paul Allen form Traf-O-Data in 1971 to sell their computer traffic-analysis
systems.
1972: Gary Kildall writes PL/M, the first high-level programming language for the Intel
microprocessor.
Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak are building and selling "blue boxes" in Southern California in
1971.
April 1972: Intel introduces the 8008, the first 8-bit microprocessor.
Jonathan A. Titus designs the Mark-8, "Your Personal Minicomputer," according to the July,
1974 cover of Radio-Electronics.
Popular Electronics features the MITS Altair 8800 on its cover, January 1975. It is hailed as the
first "personal" computer. Thousands of orders for the 8800 rescue MITS from bankruptcy.
Pictured below: The Homebrew Computer Club in 1975.
Paul Allen and Bill Gates develop BASIC for the Altair 8800. Microsoft is born.
By 1980 Apple has captured 50% of the personal computer market.
In 1980 Microsoft is approached by IBM to develop BASIC for its personal computer project.
The IBM PC is released in August, 1981.
The Apple Macintosh debuts in 1984. It features a simple, graphical interface, uses the 8-MHz,
32-bit Motorola 68000 CPU, and has a built-in 9-inch B/W screen.
Microsoft Windows 1.0 ships in November, 1985.
Motorola announces the 68040, a 32-bit 25MHz microprocessor.
Microsoft's sales for 1989 reach $1 billion, the first year to do so.
Timesharing, the concept of linking a large numbers of users to a single computer via remote
terminals, is developed at MIT in the late 50s and early 60s.
1962: Paul Baran of RAND develops the idea of distributed, packet-switching networks.
ARPANET goes online in 1969.
Bob Kahn and Vint Cerf develop the basic ideas of the Internet in 1973.
In 1974 BBN opens the first public packet-switched network - Telenet.
.
The World Wide Web sports a growth rate of 341,634% in service traffic in its third year, 1993.
The main U.S. Internet backbone traffic begins routing through commercial providers as
NSFNET reverts to a research network in 1994.
The Internet 1996 World Exposition is the first World's Fair to be held on the internet.
WORLD INTERNET CONNECTIVITY (As of 6/15/95)
Avoid lying to people who know your "baseline behavior"
Many years of research have proven one thing: it's incredibly difficult to know if someone is
lying unless you have prior exposure to his or her baseline behavior. What is a baseline? It's
the back of the box on a tennis court. What is baseline behavior? It is how you act when
you're not lying. You know, the way you normally act, the way you talk and behave when
you're having a casual conversation in which no attempt at deception is taking place.
The greater the number of interactions that the target of the lie (we'll use a "he" in this
example) has had with you, the more familiar he will be with your baseline behavior.
Because he knows how you usually act, he'll press you on the veracity of your statements,
and be more likely ultimately to figure out that you lied. This is why the old maxim: "a liar
never looks you straight in the eye" is bull. If the person doesn't usually look people in the
eye as part of his normal non-lying behavior, he very may well look you in the eye when he
IS lying. (This would be a change from his baseline behavior.) Lots of other little clues that
all of the fogies down at Shady Pines have provided (e.g., liars talk fast, their eyes dart
around, or clear their throats a lot) are also pretty much useless for this reason; if the old
folks really knew how to spot a liar, they wouldn't get ripped off in those crazy phone scams
all the time. It doesn't matter what someone does when (s)he lies, it only matters if such
behavior is different from how she or he normally acts.
It's easier to lie to people you don't care about
There is another important justification for having as little contact with the target as
possible: it is easier to lie to people about whom you don't give a damn. To understand
why, consider this: many studies have shown that it's relatively easy to lie to someone over
the phone because the sense of personal connection is very small. You can't see them; they
can't see you. As a result, you are less likely to feel guilty and, therefore, give visual clues
that you may be deviating from your baseline behavior. If you were closer to the person
physically, you would have a greater personal connection. Consequently, you would be more
likely to "leak" (reveal in some way that you are engaging in deceptive behavior).
The same reasoning applies to being close to a person psychologically. Think about it. If you
try to lie to your girlfriend or boyfriend, there are numerous psychological pressures (you'll
think about what happens if you get caught, feel guilty about lying to someone you care
about, etc.), and it will be more difficult to focus on mimicking your baseline behavior. Trust
us; you'll probably leak all over the place (in all senses of the word). This phenomenon is
often called "liar's remorse," and it's usually what people are talking about when they say a
liar "wanted to get caught."
So how does knowing this aid your ability to lie well? The answer is this: if you're going to
lie, try to lie to someone who doesn't know you very well. They will be less familiar with
your baseline behavior, and you will be less like to care about them. In the event that you
need to lie to a close friend, family member, or other loved one, try this trick: lie to
someone who doesn't know you as well, and have them pass the message along. If that's
not possible, you must truly master everything we tell you from here on in.