It’s a fact you can’t argue with: Computer technology made some astounding advances over the past ten centuries. This has been a time of genius, hard work, and selfless dedication to the wealth of one’s employers.

But then, there have also been moments like these:

1000: The Y1K problem wrecks havoc across Europe. No one has planned for the new four-digit years. In fact, as New Year’s Day dawns, not a single computer is running. China, however, survives the ordeal, as the Abacus proves perfectly capable of handling the transition to the Year of the Rat.

1504: Leonardo Da Vinci envisions a machine that will calculate numbers using a series of ones and zeros, enable writers to easily process words, and allow multimedia entertainment to be published over the Internet. He abandons the idea when he realizes that easily-pirated images would cut into his painting revenue.

1823: Charles Babbage designs a computing machine based on a base-10 numbering system. The machine is never completed due to funding problems caused by rumors that Microsoft is entering the market.

1943: Work begins at the University of Pennsylvania on the ENIAC, a computer designed to calculate ballistics tables for the war effort. Completed in 1946, the ENIAC starts a major industry trend when it is shipped way too late.

1944: Engineers at Harvard build the Mark I, a computer that sets a major precedent by breaking down with almost every use.

1968: A talking computer, the HAL 9000, steals the show in 2001: A Space Odyssey. In addition to waxing philosophically and singing "Daisy," HAL makes his mark by killing four astronauts. Could it have been the Y2K bug?

1975: The Altair 8800 begins the age of the personal computer. The Altair came with only one program: a version of BASIC licensed from a two-person startup named Microsoft. For the first time, Bill Gates gets to control all of the software available for every personal computer in the world.

1976: Two guys named Steve form Apple Computers (on April Fools’ day), running the company out of a garage. Eventually, both are fired.

1980: Bill Gates talks IBM into letting Microsoft provide the operating system for Big Blue’s forthcoming personal computer, despite the fact that Microsoft doesn’t even own an operating system. The resulting OS, MS-DOS, will make Gates a billionaire, rob IBM of its market dominance, and send millions of users into the waiting arms of Apple. It also forever brands IBM as the Elmer Fudd of the computer industry.

1981: IBM releases the first PC. Much to everyone’s surprise, it becomes a huge hit. IBM executives wonder where they went wrong.

1983: Apple releases the Lisa, the first personal computer with a graphical user interface, and the last with a $10,000 price tag.

1985: Microsoft releases Windows 1.04 to jeers, snide comments, and miserable sales. It will take five years before the operating environment dominates the industry to an accompaniment of jeers, snide comments, and screams for help.

1986: Gigglebytes premiers in Bay Area Computer Currents. The world rolls over and goes back to sleep.

1987: Lotus Development Corp. sues two companies, Mosaic and Paperback Software, for stealing the "look and feel" of its 1-2-3 spreadsheet. The legal issue is an important one—where would we be today if every car company had been allowed to put the brake on the left and the gas pedal on the right? The lawsuits would eventually ruin Mosaic, Paperback, and Borland, while Microsoft Excel steals Lotus’ market.

1989: IBM and Microsoft have a very public divorce. But how do they divide the children? Ever the Elmer Fudd, Big Blue lets Microsoft keep Windows and hangs on to OS/2.

1990: Microsoft releases Windows 3.0, which becomes a huge hit and establishes Windows as the primary working environment for PCs. No one is exactly sure why.

1993: Microsoft announces the new Plug and Play hardware standard, emphasizing warm docking events and hot insertion. Industry pundits site this as proof that Microsoft employees need to get out more.

1994: Intel acknowledges that its Pentium chip, released the previous year, has a problem with division. The company responds with calm reassurance that no one was dividing those two particular numbers anyway.

1995: Windows 95 premieres, becoming the first operating system that you can’t shut down without pressing a Start button. To promote the new wonder, Microsoft licenses the Rolling Stones song "Start Me Up" for its ad campaign, and officially ignores the line "You make a grown man cry."

1998: Apple has a big hit with the iMac, proving that a slow, overpriced computer can sell if the hype is big enough, and it comes in a funny-looking case.

1999: In typing the first draft of this article, Lincoln Spector types the word millennium and, for the first time, his spell checker doesn’t need to correct it.

© Copyright 2000 by Lincoln Spector

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