© Dana Saur, www.schloss.ro Sept. 1999
Index
Chapter one: 3000 B.C. to 17th Century A.D.
Chapter Three; Early to Mid 20th Century
1946-1949; The greatest revolution in human development begins
Chapter Seven; The 1990s and beyond...
APPENDIX
3000 B.C.E. An early form of the bead-and-wire abacus is used in Asia.
876 C.E. First recorded use of the symbol for zero occurs in India.
1620 Edmund Gunter of England invents the slide rule, forerunner of the electric calculator.
1642 Blaise Pascal designs the first functioning mechanical calculator, which can perform the work of six accountants; initial public reaction is less than overwhelming, but the Pascaline will remain in use until the mid-20th century.
1694 Gottfried Leibniz builds a calculating machine that uses binary representations of numbers.
1812 Factory worker Ned Ludd inspires other workers to destroy "labor-saving" machines that they fear will take over their jobs; Luddite later comes to refer to anyone who opposes technology, or is a computerphobe (like "born-again" Southern Baptists in general; George Bush; Jerry Fartwell; Jimmy Swaggart; etc. :)
1832 Charles Babbage designs the first computer driven by external instructions; due to lack of funding, however, he never builds it.
1854 George Boole publishes his thoughts on symbolic logic, which decades later will form the basis of computer science applications.
1857 Sir Charles Wheatstone introduces continuously feeding paper tape that can be used for storing and reading data in chronological order. This allows time-referenced and sequence-referenced operations required for calculating and computing.
1876 Alexander Graham Bell, 27 years old, files a patent for the telephone.
1890 Herman Hollerith designs the punch-card tabulation machine, allowing the U.S. Census Bureau to reduce its data calculation time from ten years to two and a half.
1896 Herman Hollerith founds the Tabulating Machine Company, one of three companies that will later merge and become known as IBM.
1897 Karl Braun develops the cathode-ray tube.
1918 First calculating machine based on binary. (the numbers 1 and 0).
1937 John Atanasoff begins work on the first electronic digital computer but neglects to take out a patent; almost ten years later, the ENIAC will be based on his pioneering work. Georges Stibitz develops the first binary logic circuit at Bell Labs.
1938 William Hewlett and David Packard form HP in a garage in Palo Alto, California. Konrad Zuse produces the first comprehensive computer that uses binary code.
1939 Georges Stibitz and Samuel Williams build the Complex Number Computer, which has 400 telephone relays and is connected to three teletype machines -- precursors to the modern-day PBX terminal.
1944 Engineers at Harvard build the Mark I computer. The machine breaks down repeatedly, but demonstrates the practical possibilities.
1946-1949; The greatest revolution in human development begins:
1946 Engineers at the University of Pennsylvania demonstrate the ENIAC, the first general-purpose electronic computer. Doesn't ever break down, but eats vacuum tubes as fast as a team of operators can replace them! Eniac successfully calculates numbers (such as Pi to the 1000000000 integer) that no human has previously been able to accomplish. The scientific "value" of a "computer" is established. ENIAC creates the need for computers.
1947 Two workers at Bell Laboratories experiment with the first transistor.
1949 John Mauchly develops the Short Code, the world's first high-level programming language. This event, combined with the success of ENIAC (1946, above) creates mankind's most profound revolution. The race is on.
1951 Mauchly and John Eckert build the UNIVAC I, the first commercial electronic computer, which is installed at the U.S. Census Bureau. Grace Murray Hopper develops A0, which translates programming code into binary code.
1952 The UNIVAC I successfully predicts a landslide presidential victory for candidate Dwight Eisenhower over Adlai Stevenson, despite pundit predictions to the contrary.
1953 IBM manufactures its model 650, the first mass-produced computer; the company sells 1500 units before taking it off the market in 1969.
1955 Narinder Kapany develops the optical fiber. American Airlines installs the first large database network, built by IBM, connecting 1200 teletypewriters.
1956 IBM develops the first hard drive, called RAMAC. Programmers at IBM write the computer language FORTRAN. The MANIAC I becomes the first computer program to defeat a human opponent in a game of chess.
1958 Texas Instruments builds the first integrated circuit. Without this and the invention of transistors, desktop computing could never be possible. (Both ENIACs took up the whole floor of a large commercial building). Bell Telephone introduces the first modems. Researchers at Bell Labs invent the laser. (required for a CDRom)
1959 Using an abacus, Lee Kaichen, a Chinese professor, performs calculations faster than computers in Seattle, New York, and Taipei. Grace Murray Hopper and Charles Phillips invent COBOL. John McCarthy and Marvin Minsky form the Artificial Intelligence Lab at MIT. Xerox introduces the first commercial copier.
1960 Digital Equipment Corporation develops the PDP-1, the first commercial computer equipped with a keyboard and monitor.
1961 John Kelly at Bell Labs programs a computer to sing a song; the tune it warbles: "Daisy Bell (Bicycle Built for Two)."
1962 The People's National Bank in Gouster, Virginia, installs the world's first ATM; it isn't a success, however, and its maker eventually goes out of business. Programmers at MIT create the first video game.
1963 Douglas Engelbart develops the mouse at the Stanford Research Institute; two decades later, the Macintosh will make it a standard component.
1964 Computer dating services become a fad. Zenith develops the first commercial product that uses an integrated circuit -- a hearing aid. The American Standard Association adopts ASCII as the standard code for data transfer.
1965 Digital Equipment Corporation builds the first minicomputer; it costs $18,000. The simplified computer language BASIC is developed; it will later become the standard language for PCs.
1968 Intel is formed. For the first time, a computer (HAL 9000) costars in a movie, Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey; as its memory is unplugged, it sings "Daisy (Bicycle Built for Two)" -- the same tune John Kelly's computer had sung seven years earlier.
1969 Man lands on the moon. Before he died, Von Braun said that it could never be done without a computer. The one they used (on board the spacecraft) had 32 kilobytes of RAM, (non-virtual) no true static-reference "hard drive" (in any modern sense), and literally CRAWLED along its crude software code at an amazing "CPU" speed of less than 1 megaherz! Honeywell releases its H316 "Kitchen Computer," the first home computer; priced at $10,600 in the Neiman Marcus catalog, the computer can plan menus and take care of other household business. ARPAnet, precursor to the Internet, debuts. ATMs become more widely used in banks. "Bubble memory" makes its debut, allowing computers to retain SOME memory after being shut off.
1970 The floppy disk is introduced. (no, not the 3.5-inch ones!), the REAL floppies were flaccid 5.25 inch disks enclosed in droopy paper containers, and if you accidentally folded one, it was ruined. Thus its name: floppy. Intel develops the first memory chip, which stores 1024 bits of data. Xerox establishes its Palo Alto Research Center. The daisy wheel printer appears on the market. Bell Labs develops Unix.
1971 Texas Instruments introduces the pocket calculator. Dot matrix printers appear. Niklaus Wirth develops PASCAL. The first speech-recognition software, Hearsay, is developed in India. It is too complicated for any but the most advanced computers. The first mass-produced commercial home computer to recognize speech and interact with a human is a Macintosh, 23 years later.
1972 Ray Tomlinson invents e-mail. The first home video games are designed for use on the TV, and Atari releases the first arcade game, Pong. Programmers at Bell Labs develop the computer language C.
1974 Congress passes the Privacy Act, which gives the public greater control over the collection and use of personal information.
1975 First widely marketed personal computer, the Altair 8800, debuts. Liquid crystal displays are marketed. Bob Metcalfe at Xerox develops Ethernet. The first word-processing software, the Electric Pencil, is developed. The Federal government's antitrust suit against IBM goes to trial; the government will drop the case in 1982, but not before producing some 30 million pages of documentation. IBM introduces the laser printer. Microsoft, the unofficial partnership of compulsive plagiarist Bill Gates and Paul Allen, achieves sales of $16,000. (Paul is the one and only CREATIVE genius of the early Microsoft operation)
1976 Data General unveils its computer chips in the navel of a belly dancer at the National Computer Conference in New York. Gary Kildall develops CP/M. IBM develops the ink jet printer. Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs form Apple Computer.
1977 Bill Gates and Paul Allen officially found Microsoft. Apple introduces the Apple II, the first preassembled personal computer; the Apple II will lead the PC market until the IBM PC appears in 1981. Tandy and Commodore release PCs with built-in monitors -- no need for a TV hookup.
1978 WordStar is released and quickly becomes the most popular word processing program.
1979 Steve Jobs visits Xerox PARC (which inspires him to build the first GUI computer: Lisa). Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston introduce VisiCalc ("visible calculator"), the first "killer app".
1980 dBASE II appears on the market.
1981 IBM introduces the IBM PC with an MS-DOS operating system.
1982 Dr. Barney Clark receives the first artificial heart; a microprocessor controls its functions. Andrew Fluegelman creates the first shareware, PC-Talk. Compact disc players are introduced. Osborne builds the first PC portable. The first IBM PC clones are marketed. Time magazine names the PC "Man of the Year."
1983 Workers lay the Boston/New York/Washington, D.C. fiber-optic link. Apple introduces the $9,995 Lisa, the first computer to use a graphical user interface and a mouse. IBM launches the PC-XT, the first computer with a built-in hard drive, and also introduces the PCjr.
1984 CD-ROM debuts; Apple releases the Macintosh. 2400-baud modems are introduced. Hewlett-Packard markets the LaserJet, the first personal laser printer. Novelist William Gibson coins the term cyberspace.
1985 America Online is founded. Microsoft develops Windows 1.0 for the IBM PC. Bill Gates and Apple CEO John Sculley sign a confidential agreement granting Microsoft the right to use aspects of Apple's graphical interface in its software, while acknowledging the Mac OS as the inspiration for Microsoft Windows. Nintendo arrives in the United States.
1986 Microsoft goes public. The National Science Foundation approves funding for the Internet backbone.
1988 Microsoft releases Windows 2.03, whose overlapping windows resemble the Macintosh's, and Apple files suit; six years and some $10 million later the court will decide in Microsoft's favor. Steve Jobs introduces NeXT. The Internet Worm, a piece of self-replicating software, wriggles through the Internet.
1989 Tim Berners-Lee invents the World Wide Web. HDTV appears in Japan. Apple begins research on the PPC RISC CPU chip, which will dominate the speed market of the 90's and hold the fastest desktop performance records into the new millennium. It is the first chip that can actually process four different tasks simultaneously. (Unlike Windows, which pretends to "multi-task" by cycling interruptions on simultaneous tasks to create a "wave-walk effect")
1990 Intel introduces the i486 chip. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission begins its investigation of Microsoft. Microsoft sales hit $1 billion; Windows hits 3.0.
1993 Personal digital assistants (handheld computers) introduced. Intel releases the Pentium chip. Marc Andreessen and Eric Bina design Mosaic, the first graphical Web browser. The Apple Newton palm computer debuts.
1994. Big Brother arrives, George Orwell's prediction was only ten years late! GPS auto navigation systems become available in U.S. ...if you have "clearance and authorization" to use them. Intel ships 2 million flawed Pentium chips. Great News for archivers and pirates: Iomega introduces the Zip drive and 100 Mb "superfloppy" disks. SCSI and Parallel versions take over the world and become the new portable media standard, crushing the stone-age loud, noisy and monumentally heavy Syquest Drive overnight (if you still use them, you are a real paleolithic archive yourself). Marc Andreessen helps found Netscape. Apple creates a PPC with Speech Recognition built-in to the core system software. It can speak, recognize spoken words, take voice commands, and process data in 128 bits (existing Windows and all other desktop PCs can only do 16 bits, but now "pretend" or "simulate" doing 32 or 64). Microsoft buys 40 of these Apple 6100/66 PPCs with DOS compatibility, to write a new 32-bit PC program named "Windows 95". Fact. Win95 OEM was 100% Mac-made. But it is an immediate flop. over 3000 subsequent program patches are made. It is still a flop. Crashes during Bill Gates' press conference immediately after starting up. ...Where do you want to go today? Well, Bill, I would LIKE to get past the start menu! LOL. (BTW, don't blame those 40 Macs for the crashes, it was Bill's lousy software by-the-meter codewriting that made all the defects). Better news: a cool dude named Phil Zimmerman invents a PERFECT encryption program named PGP (Pretty Good Privacy). It cannot be cracked. Impossible to decode messages unless you have a key. So the FBI and NSA gets nervous, then Zimmerman gets locked up in a Federal Penitentiary for the "crime of assuring privacy" (or was it for creating a perfect program?). It is immediately export-banned. People (like this author) immediately go on an "internet scavenger hunt" at MIT, Berkley, and other participating places, to get all the parts needed to use PGP. Since MIT (and all of us) had therefore "already let the cat out of the bag" a revolution for humanity and "privacy" is quietly won.. for a moment. Zimmerman is finally released (after a supreme court calls the NSA and DOJ a "bunch of clipper-chip-armed privacy-stealing Nazis"). But a deal is struck with the PGP inheritors: PGP forms available now (except the first "scavenger hunt" version, v. 2.6.2) is given a "backdoor access key" for the use of NSA and Project Echelon "vital security interests". ie; What does that mean? Now, the skirt-wearing, Clyde Tolson rump-riding FBI-perverts can use that key ...to open your mail anyway! What privacy? Who else would you want to conceal personal items from... besides the perverted agencies that can now freely read anything they want, even if you ARE using PGP? Use of encryption by itself, now makes you a suspect in America. Bizarre. Big brother has Echelon, all the keys to PGP, and still prefers rump-riding its own citizens, not just J.Edgar Hoover's boyfriend/mistress. In this same year, it is discovered that the Intel Chip has unique identifying code numbers for "fingerprinting" the computer it is in (and of course, "quite by accident", ALSO its owner/user). Intel says it is "to prevent theft or fraud on a Network". Consumer groups say it is "Just another Clipper Chip Invasion of Privacy". All a matter of opinion. Red is grey and yellow's white, but you decide which is right...and which is an illusion.
1995 Flat-screen LCD TVs (and monitors) are introduced. Everybody should have one to escape the hazardous emissions of all cathode ray tubes, but still today, 5 years later nobody can afford them! Worse news- Microsoft releases the (sometimes) 32-bit Windows 95, written on the 1994 Macintosh (above). Don't blame Macintosh for its total sloppy instability, it is Gates' complete lack of condensed code skills at fault! (Windows 95 is not really an "Operating System" any more than 3x. Windows remains as always, an "application" that runs on top of DOS base codes, and "emulates" 32 bit processing. Actually, Windows 3.11 (the enhanced version) was a lot better at staying in 32 bit mode. It averaged 78% of the time, regardless of what other 16 bit applications ran simultaneously. Windows Millennium drops to 16-bit processing (and usually stays there) every time a 12-bit or 16-bit application starts! You can actually load Windows 3.11 in 32 bit mode, and run any application faster than it will run on the same hardware, with any later version of Windows, especially (the snail/slug) Millennium Edition. Better news- Pixar Animation Studios and Disney release the first full-length computer-generated feature film, Toy Story. Microsoft introduces Office 95, "the greatest friend a virus wanting to propagate ever had". DVD technology is standardized. Jeffrey Bezos founds Amazon.com. Netscape goes public.
1996 Microsoft Set-top boxes allow users to surf the Web through their TV. Called "Web-TV". Web TV has no word processing, spreadsheet, or loadable executable abilities whatsoever. Just WWW and e-mail. May be a field where MicroSlop is not in over its head. Gates can probably do this one right. He won't need to steal or plagiarize anything. But in the same year, the Palm Pilot debuts. Watch out, Bill.
1997 DVD players become available in the United States. Windows makes a special palm Operating System, hoping to corner the market on the new minis. Everybody from Palm Pilot to Newton says "Thanks, but no thanks, ...We already know your sleazy operating systems!" Two years and thousands of resource-eating patches later, Windows 95 (now called 97) can start up 90% of the time without freezing. No guarantees after that, though. You and your fingernails are on your own. The hottest selling esoteric product in 1997 is a "W9x crashbag kit", which is a box mounted on your computer that inflates if you "bang your head in anguish, on the monitor when Windows crashes". It doesn't really have a crash bag inside, it is kind of like a "pet rock". Just a security blanket placebo. But cute! (even though it reflects the sad reality of Microsoft user angst/anguish)
1998 Diamond Multimedia introduces the portable MP3. The Starr Report is released online; within hours, the Hacking for Girlies group breaks into the New York Times Web site and brings it down for nine hours. Apple releases its candy-colored iMacs which are certified as the fastest comprehensive package desktop computers on the planet. E-commerce explodes as a new shopping medium and some 30 million households are purchasing goods over the Internet. Clarion and Microsoft introduce the Auto PC. Share prices of Yahoo and Infoseek stocks skyrocket. The Linux OS hits the big time. Time, Newsweek, CNN... all world media honk the penguin OS horn and make the world's BEST and only free operating system a household word (at least among informed geeks). In 1998, Linux is (since debut less than 5 years earlier) the preferred network server at over 85% of the world's internet sites and ISPs. Its reliability and price (none) is the success story of the www. Due to MS constant crash-and-burn behavior and total instability, the world's lousiest server (NT Workstation) shrank to less than 3% of www. servers. NT is only used by people who have no CLUE how to do it otherwise. If you ever got e-mail that would not work because the file names had been changed in transit, it went through an NT server. It is the ONLY OS in the world that still does that to HTMLs and .exe (executable) extensions.
1998 Congress passes a law making it a crime to have any MS-Operating System in a nuclear plant (and also banned Java for the same reasons). You cannot even bring in your own laptop, if it has Windows/Java on it! Hmmm! Can it be they finally figured out this is the wrong place for defective crash-prone software? Thanks! Windows and Java (both) now must include this warning with all their software: "This software is not intended for use in any nuclear facility, hospital, air traffic control facility, or any other location where system failure may cause loss of life". The European Union holds a meeting to consolidate the standards for new HDTV systems due for the airwaves in 2000. The System will include web browsing and e-mail. Bill Gates shows up at the meeting (without an invitation) because without the CE/Euro approval, he cannot get his new Windows HDTV operating system adopted. The CE/Euro commission says they "cannot imagine the need to have televisions crash, too". In other words: ..."thanks, but no thanks. ...We already know your sleazy operating systems!" The DOJ suit against Microsoft finds a "sympathetic" judge who allows Windows 98 to be released ...WITH a browser integrated. The author believes this is detrimental to the evolution and development of the PC. The Federal judge is discovered to have acquired a "large ranch in California of undisclosed value" without any payment records. A new judge is appointed. One of the few Federal judges that cannot be bought. Vows to "pursue the case fully". I do not believe ANYBODY can buy this one off. Watch out, Bill. I think you better grab your pants!
1999 AOL completes its acquisition of Netscape. Microsoft, with 27,320 employees, loses its nearly ten year-old monopoly and unfair trade suit at the Justice Department. The penalties are to be determined by a Federal judge later in the year. Shock wave hits wall street. E-Trade experiences outages three days in a row. In perfect timing, Linux and Sun introduce "Star Office", a new FREE Linux version of Office 99 that will open, read, and write ANY Microsoft document WITHOUT any possibility of WSL virus infection. The stability of Star Office is impeccable, and the documents it creates are visually undetectable from MS Word or Excel. All the same features and qualities as MS Office, just has none of the obscene viral infectiousness or crash-potential! Apple introduces the G4 chip. Outperforms all existing PC chips (even the phony 1000 Mhz-clocked Intels) by a factor of over ten times (in speed). G4 FPU processing has the only perfect accuracy available in any desktop CPU. As a result, it becomes the FIRST CPU chip banned for export by the NSA as a "threat to national security". The reason? supposedly, it is the first commercial chip capable of directing missiles within millimeters of a target, or accomplishing a moon shot. As a result of this insulting and absurd ban, the Justice department is sued by all of the US Euro-allies: UK, Germany, Italy, France ( . . . uhm, -ahem!- are they anybody's ally ?) Apple stocks are the only e-stocks to skyrocket during the 3rd quarter massive 1999 stock market tumble. Apple stocks quadruple in one day, Intel went down 11% at the same time. The European Parliament announces in December 1999 that it is considering a ban against Pentium 3 CPU Chips to "protect the rights and privacy of European Citizens". At issue (see 1994) is a PSN ("Personal Serial Number") in Pentium chips that allow its user to be "identified" (ie; "tracked" and therefore, monitored) in all Internet transactions". The Euro Parliament asks for special documents from the NSA and FBI that allegedly show they have secured a deal with Intel for getting the "keys" to the tracking mechanism in the CPU. The ACLU teams up with Euro Parliament in the efforts to stop the P3/NSA Chip in its "tracks". Meanwhile, "back at the ranch", the US DOJ finally tells Microsoft it is over. Choose the pieces of the company they want to keep, the rest are going to be split like the Bell System was. Microsoft is considering offering to make Windows 95 (only) "public domain" as a part of the deal. Hmmm! Curious. If Gates thought it was worth anything at all to begin with, would he be so quick to give it away before he even gets to the table?
2000 The DOJ suit wins, therefore, all people win. But the case goes to appeal. Under consideration is requiring the Windows OS be "public domain" and/or splitting off the Word/Office division. Gates says he will concede to first idea (the Windows giveaway), since nobody who has critical work to do wants MicroSlop anyway! Speaking of not wanting it... The two biggest and most successful WinTel-IBM computer manufacturers in the USA (IBM and Dell Computer) both bail out of Microsoft. IBM and Dell both announce they will no longer support any of its contracts or products that are using Windows OS. All new products (even the Dell and ThinkPad laptops) will be issued with Linux OS. Michael Dell, who was an old friend of Bill Gates, says "We got tired of doing Microsoft's phone support for our products. Everyone who was irritated with our products was actually irritated with the limitations and hazards of Windows. Now that we have Linux, everyone is happy with the stability. We have less warranty calls, far less (almost zero) angry or frustrated customers, and we have much better profits." That last part (increased profits after deleting Microsoft) was the part that all market analysts watched closely. They were convinced it could not happen. But the statistics are incredibly clear, and the direct coordination/correlation are solely attributable to purging Microsoft. IBM and Dell both, nearly doubled their profits by deleting Windows. Summary? The two best profit margins during the late 20th century e-bust period" were the only two blue chip PC companies who broke ALL ties with Microsoft. This is the "ides of March" sign that reared its head in the new millennium. This fact allows me to be certain my "predictions" (and hopes/dreams) for 2002/2003 will come true: The world will eventually be free of Microsoft. There is no doubt that all serious virus afflictions affect Windows users. But the price made that cost tolerable. Now that the economic reality reflects that PROFITS are increased dramatically without Windows, good things will happen much faster! Stockholders care about profits. Companies listen to stockholders.
2001Steve is back, and under his guidance, Apple is one of the star surfers on the stock market until the whole e-industry takes a dive. Earthquakes in the orient, Boo.com, and phony hype are to blame, but the best and leanest will ride the wave again by year's end. Except that Windows OS will begin its collapse by 4th-quarter 2001. Netscape teams up with its old rival, AOL (now with Time Warner/CNN). The Feds balk a while, but give in to a probationary merger after promises of "free access" and "fair play". WHAT? in this industry? Is the FTC really that naive? Meanwhile, Linux with a GUI/X-Windows "face" on its new 2001 releases, and being FREE Y2K-SAFE software, takes over the new WinTel millennium among the intelligent and informed. Microsoft (one of George Jr's biggest campaign contributors) gets a "better deal" with the Bush administration's review of the DOJ lawsuit. Federal Appeals court rules Microsoft has indeed been guilty of illegal trade practices, but also condemns the last judge for "hurting Bill's feelings". A Bush-deal is in the works, and the browser might remain in Windows ME. But many locked-up features (including MS restrictions on Intel) must be standardized and re-opened to competition. For years, MicroSlop has been telling software manufacturers "if you make Linux versions, we will drop our support for Windows". This is extortion. Just like the (similarly threatening) Intel restrictions are. Extortion has always been illegal. Bill Gates has conducted this extortion crusade personally, and is therefore guilty of felony. He should be in Ivan Boessky's jail cell, but Bill's deal with Bush will surely keep this justice from happening. Some experts warn that there may be increased ID-gathering built into Windows as part of the trade with Bush (remember, we have daddy Bush to thank for the Clipper Chip and the Intel CPU ID number). Still, with the WinTel CPU chip and all software free of future "MS-mobster-terrorism", (and IBM/Dell still enjoying record MS-free profits in contrast) Linux will definitely prevail. With MS out of the way by 2002/3, the PC will again be able to evolve after 10 years of MicroSlop restrained inhibitions. Without the 90's decade-long extortion-pressures from Microsoft against ANY non-DOS core CPU improvements, new Intel chips will be able to take advantage of Linux' stability at even higher speeds. As a result, the performance of PCs may finally begin to close the gap on Macs. Despite the iMac, G4, G5, the iBook, and renewed innovations, Mac may finally meet a performance match against Linux in 2002. BROWSER WARS: While AOL, IE and Netscape duked it out in the great media arena, several underground browsers have infiltrated the market. NCSA Mosaic made the first GUI browser (see 1993, above) but now there are many. Opera, iCab, MiniWeb, and even one irreverent streamlined tool named "Wannabe" Web Browser! Some of these newcomers have an attitude. It seems they have figured out what people want better than IE, AOL, and Netscape. The most popular browser add-on in 2001 is "WebWasher", a utility that prevents all those boring ads from loading (first, as the advertisers demand). Now, the best browser in 2001 is iCab, a 10,000 horsepower hot-rod internet-taxi designed by a German genius named Alexander Clauss (www.iCab.de). Not only does iCab start and load 3 times faster than any browser, but it has many of its own unique features and has a better version of "WebWasher" built in as "image filters"! These single out the internet's most offensive trash site (DoubleClick.Com) and send all its ads to the trash, refusing to download them. This saves you lots of on-line time (and money). If you select "use all ad/image filters", it will do this with all similarly obnoxious ad-fat sites. In case you are wondering, Double-Click.Com is the first cookie that must be set and downloaded at CNN.Com, IDG, or any other commercial news site... before you can read one word of news, you must pay for downloading their ads (unless you have iCab). Unfortunately for you WinTel users, iCab is a Mac-only software. They have no plans to try to make Windows "wise up" that much. But if you have WinTel, you can download Opera (www.opera.com) and install WebWasher. You get similar results. Opera will beat IE, AOL, and Netscape to the punch on any website, showing tremendous speed gains and no tolerance for waste (but iCab is still at least twice as fast as Opera). Regardless, it's time to toss the fat, sleazy "big browsers", and climb into a REAL "sports car". Download iCab or Opera. They both come with Java (but turn it off, because Java in any web browser works about as fast as triangular tires on a Porsche). Then delete AOL, IE, and while you are at it, get rid of Netscape, too. It was once the "clean, honest revolutionary" of the internet, but now, with AOL as its boss, Netscape has become as fat and sluggish as IE, and is just as sloppy and careless with your time and privacy. Deleting these 3 will give you as much pleasure as popping a big ugly zit, or getting over the flu. And the immediate performance increase will make your computer seem like a nitrogen-cooled Kray supercomputer!
2002 The Y2K crisis really hits: Most people are unaware that the Y2K "crisis" is really not due until December 31, 2001 at midnight. That is when the "two digit binary year-clock" really turns over and becomes "January 1, 1900 (or in some OS, 1920) instead of Jan. 1, 2002. Difficult to explain without going into depth about binary date codes, but just take my word for it. Nothing is proven "safe" until the "caca hits the fan" that night. The only projected survivors are Apple and Linux OS, which both had an early start on the concept (even my 1988 Mac SE date CP goes up to 2019 with the original software, before it rolls back to 1920). Linux is also perfectly prepared, since all versions were developed with foresight on this looming disaster. But Windows? All versions of MS Windows are actually "applications" that run in "simulation mode" or "emulation mode" on top of DOS. The same old Dumb DOS that Bill Gates stole from Seattle in 1980. And DOS code (which Gates cannot alter since he did not write it, and has no clue about its underlying encryption) is set to roll over at Midnight January 31, 2001. Everything you see when you play with the "date and time" control panel in any Windows OS is just an illusion. It is a patch that allows the dial to spin in 4 digits, when there are only two. It is a lie. A total fraud. If you are using Windows that night, pray that they have found EVERY reference to "year" inside DOS, Windows, and all its auxiliary/peripheral utility code. Pray that they have installed a patch that will catch the errors that snowball and manifest themselves into every MS application. If not, if they miss just 1 of thousands, then it is all in vain. Not even a floppy disk can be formatted properly, because the date code is an inherent part of its dual directory fraud (which allows it to see 31 characters). One directory is "12-bit" ("DOS" caps/8-characters/3-char. ext.) and the other uses the year swapping patch to create and refer to a "16-bit" (Windows 31 character file name system). If DOS is year-defective, then so will be the dates of all disks. Every time you refer to a floppy, CD, or Zip Disk archive, the whole system will invert the "file creation dates" and "modification dates" of all files on all disks. We all know the "illegal operation" notice that windows yells thousands of times per day... that will be the last expression on its dying, frozen "face" if there is JUST ONE single oversight in the millions of patches that had to be made. Microsoft already has contingency plans to advise all clients of secure servers, banking, and securities firms to quit using all pre-millennium products (Word/Excel/PPT/OE and Office 95-98, NT, Win 95, 97, 98) before new year's eve, or risk losing all data inside a "clusterflock" of scrambled #@!&*?% ASCII nonsense.
2003 Further projections: Linux will finally make universal OS "self-installers" and even Mac users will play with the system. Microsoft Word and Excel becomes illegal software, based on proven Y2K and virus-carrying hazards to PCs. The keyboard as an input device will begin to disappear, as Linux and the also-popular Berkley (UNIX-BSD) systems adopt Mac's vocal input technology (see Speech Technology, 1994). Then all computers will "free the fingers worldwide". You will tell your computer what to do, and what to type. (hmmm! What will you be doing with those fingers?)
The future hazards of the computer are many:
First and most extreme are the absurdities of ever giving "artillery to a self-conscious CPU with an attitude". Giving ANYONE a gun is hazardous. When I was in the Army, I saw many people shot, but 3 were tragic self-inflicted accidents by men whose "profession" was "carrying and using guns". So giving a THING a gun is totally irresponsible. I created one in ignorance back in the 1980's and was lucky it did not kill me. But today, thousands of lethally armed computers exist elsewhere. And in the future, there are certain to be more advanced ones. That is not "science fiction". Ask Baghdad. Ask the many cities that now have made versions of my "mech cop" for SWAT "hostage situations". Ask the many victims that have already been slaughtered; Intended, accidentally, and otherwise (one police operator is already listed among the casualties). Computers that murder already exist. Fact. We do not need Ray Bradbury anymore to IMAGINE that reality. There are probably at least a thousand rounds of deerslug and buckshot "chambered and aimed" at humans this very second, worldwide. This is a moral, philosophical, and common-sense issue that must be addressed. I see the need for them in many decayed American cities where for all purposes, there exists a constant armed war against drug-crazed and armed humans. But on the other hand, I prefer a human hold the trigger at all times. I call it the "MicroSlop Syndrome". Humans have breakdowns, but far less often than computers (especially MicroSoft Computers). Nuclear arsenals (contrary to popular belief) are not trusted to computer "triggers". To give a computer that responsibility is not sensible, and never should be considered less than obscene. That is why the President of the United States always carries a suitcase (called "The Atomic Football") with him everywhere he goes. The USA has the most advanced computers on the planet, but does not trust any of them with the ultimate defense decision. To invoke that requires a finger made of flesh and bone. Is giving a computer total discretion over firing a shotgun any less absurd?
The next hazard of computers is that they can (and do) become a de-humanizing tool. Big corporations and institutions are obsessed with the vital productivity of computers. Modern management is immersed primarily in a "network-mentality" of viewing and interacting with the entire corporation. The total direction of both War and IBM (in the modern world, the strategies of these institutions are the same) now takes place "in a browser window". Management and "Generals" inadvertently adopt the computer system of "resource management" and lose sight of the fact that the human staff is not just another CPU in the "network". Management jargon now refers to an employee who is away from the desk as "off line" and one that is ill as "defragging" (healing). In the Army that term had the same but a more convoluted meaning ("fragging" was how we got rid of dangerously naive or delusional "second louies"). Since the Romans, popular slang and jargon has always reflected prevailing values. America was very ill in the Vietnam-60's when "fragging" was a widely used term. Today's "Defragging" jargon is equally disturbing, because it is not a joke, it is the real attitude from the peak of the pyramid. The punks of a cold circle. Humans are not (at least presently) computers. The Japanese seem to thinks so, they recently installed orgasm-on-demand chips in test women (I wonder if they are really having meaningful fun?). But aside from such absurd extremes, when people are treated like computers, they are resentful. The relationship between workers and management will certainly deteriorate in future organizations (business, armies, and governments) where people are viewed in such cold computer terms. Bitterness, loneliness, and hostility in such cold impersonal environments will breed more frequent "fast-food-massacres". Now, there are (on average) 60 kids per day that are killed by another kid in school. The computer and television can be blamed for some of that, but it is a basic reflection of how irretrievably ill America is. It has become a fundamentalist sea of ignorance and emptiness, armed with the most advanced toys in human military history. I am a product of that society, but I have rejected most of it. I was drafted and totally immersed in the late-60's computer evolution/revolution. First, in the army missile and silicon-killing versions, then the ARPAnet. Initially, in electronic design/repair, then slowly the computer's "front side" (interaction-I/O) attracted me. I have always been pro-computer by most unbiased observer perceptions, even though I always hated their embryonic (non-GUI) annoying stupidity and boring repetition. But I remember when the new technology first became a daily reality for non-computer-literates. It was not good PR. Many people were caught in spiraling billing errors that became costly nightmares. Living pensioners "pronounced dead" by computers were penniless for months while desperately trying to get "restored to life" and reimbursed. There were far more computer-haters in the general 1960-70's population than there were computer lovers. Now there is a general world-wide enchantment with computers, even among the uninformed and unexperienced. A novice or journeyman can easily see the practical, entertainment, advantage, and application value. But when the Y2K "glitches" really begin in the first quarter of 2002 (while I believe there will be no humanity-shattering disasters, at least some major annoyances and minor disasters will occur) there will be a new wave of computer-haters and "New Luddites" left in its wake. Ignorant extremists and fundamentalists (the world's 2nd and 3rd greatest threat) will find new allies in previously more-sensible people. There exists a thresh hold now, however, where the line between humans and computers becomes obscured. Children in the wealthy and self-centered materialistic west were raised by television sets in previous decades. Now they are increasingly being raised by computers, even in school. Children now exist in America whom have had less than 1/20 of all interaction since birth in human terms, ie; they are "interacting" 19 hours out of every 20 with a computer instead of a human being. Due to the few years in which they are not "keyboard conscious", the existing 1/20th human ratio gets smaller each day they live. Computers are excellent learning tools, but not very good babysitters or child-rearers. We already have a generation of 20-somethings now that were raised by TV sets to predict what will happen with computer-reared children. These "TV-kids" suffer from a new form of universal attention deficit disorder malady: They cannot do anything more than 30 seconds without a diversion, changing direction, or changing focus. They especially cannot relate to another human being, concentrate on anything, or listen beyond the time limit of a commercial (or MTV clip). This "sound bite generation" cannot eat two bites from a single main course without a panic. They cannot read a book unless under gunpoint, and then, only if they believe there is really a chance of getting shot. Perfect consumers. Subject only to a maelstrom of sublime advertising suggestion, life consists of: buy, eat, buy, sleep, buy, defecate, buy, fornicate, buy, seek entertainment, always.. always -seek external temporal stimulation, and only as a second-thought necessity, show up for work long enough to buy it all some more. Short term (RAM) memory only. They cannot see their own manipulation potential but they are a "Madison Avenue Programmer's Dream-Come-True" For this generation, the computer is only a toy that arrived in their life, mid-stream. The internet as a "reference resource" is only as valuable as its MP3, animation, and "bells-and-whistles" content. When they arrive at one of my pages, they assume it is "defective" because they cannot hear anything at all unless they read or have some imagination. They are trapped in a empty life and do not have the wisdom to see it, all because their parents left them to be raised by a vacuum tube. Their mind reflects the perfect void of the droning cathode beam that raised them. Perfect citizens for the J. Edgar Hoover society; easily manipulated, easily "spin-controlled" (they believe anything that is said on TV, even if it contradicts what was said 5 minutes ago), and they are perfectly predictable because they don't have the capacity to "wonder why" they have peculiar flashes of angst and dreams that something is missing. Even if an insight occurs to them, they cannot hang onto it long enough to consider it. There are however, two advantages they have over the current "Computer-reared generation"; First, there is no danger that the TV-generation can live in a "virtual world" because it cannot possibly provide them with enough physical stimulation. Secondly, they have some clue about what is right and wrong. They at least know that if you kill someone, you may get punished. They have a conscience. At least a rudimentary recessed variation of one.
But imagine the worst qualities of the TV Generation magnified a thousand fold, and immerse the resulting soul-less prototype in a world where video games are measured only by the believability of their blood and gore graphics. A sick twisted place where "virtual enemies" have configurations allowing "replaceable faces". All this so they can disfigure "mom's face" (or the teacher's) with a HK automatic machine gun. Absurd? Nope. Reality. I have just described the most popular "video game" in the USA. It has "interchangeable faces" so that the kids can replace any "enemy face" with a JPG/photo of any real person they choose. The object of that "function" is very clear: to allow the "fantasy" of utterly mutilating the person the child is angry at! While I recognize the healthy role catharsis can play in ritual anger disposal, this goes too far. Way too far! Worse than these "games" (which parents buy without a clue as to the content), is the "Internet-reared child". Many parents in Western industrial nations inattentively leave "the keys to a benign-looking box of transistors connected to the Internet" in the hands of their children. Without any "content restriction" at all (there are many password-protected programs like "Surf Watch" which parents can use to restrict access to domains that are bad for kids). Giving a child unrestricted and unsupervised access to the Internet is like giving a 3 year old child the keys to an automobile. Unrestricted, the Internet leads to a dark world where children are increasingly becoming objects for perverse exploitation. At the least, these children are seeing the darker side of the Internet (and the deepest darkest side of humanity) way too soon for a child to filter and comprehend the inconsistencies. They assume what is tolerated in the "name of freedom" is "daily and common reality", because nobody is there to say: "This is not real", or: "This is not acceptable behavior for the vast majority of people on this planet, but we tolerate it in the name of free speech".
Having said that, I can also say The Benefits of the computer are equally numerous, and totally necessary: (this is the only section "under construction" in this essay, but you KNOW the value of a computer, or you wouldn't be reading this, right? :)
Prejudices
All history is "biased". That is because history is (still, for a while at least) written by humans. And for thousands of years there has been no denial among the best philosophers about one fact: all humans are biased. It is usually left for the wisdom of the reader (or the reader's peril, if not) to recognize the bias; the "vested interests" of the "historian". That is because most "historians" do not acknowledge their bias; nor admit to having any prejudices whatsoever. This writer is not Icarus. I admit my bias as far as I have identified it, and freely disclose it as an effort to be honest and conscientious. (most of you already saw it anyway) So in case you are interested, here it is:
This "chronological history of the computer" has two "slants":
1. I began the computer portion of my life involuntarily as a US Army draftee, using General Electric's R/RR rip-offs of UNIX (most of GE's Operating Systems were stolen), then UNIX 360 machines the Army fell in love with (I despised them). . . then the General Electric rip-offs of DOS machines the Army fell in love with (I despised them too). I enjoyed working on the "back side" of all GE's computers, and the early IBM-WinTel models that came later. I enjoyed repairing them. I had my first e-mail address in 1974, but I despised working on the human interface side of computers until I saw my first Apple 2 in 1977. Then, in 1984, I fell in love with the Macintosh, and bought one. Why? The IBM-PC is for mystics or peasants. People like medieval monks, who love darkness, codes and secret chants ("chk dsk") or simply for those people who never buy the best products. They would buy a wooden mattress for their bed if it was cheaper, and they still miss the Model-T Ford. Conversely, light, performance, reliability, durability, long-lasting usefulness and resale value, direct simplicity and convenience are the qualities that attract Mac users (and now, "Linux X-Windows" users). Creative people never buy IBM-PCs. Just accountants and cheap Scrooges. All real artists and authors who use computers, use Macs. Hacks use PCs. Stereotypes, surely, but very reliable equations. I have used both systems, and I don't just love ONE of them, I totally loathe the other. WinTel has now become the personal retarded lab-rat of Bill Gates, whom has inhibited IBM-PC development and evolution by using threats of "removing the MS operating system license" from any Intel chip innovation that requires Windows re-writes. Fact. DOJ transcripts verified this up front, years ago. "Where do you want to go today" is a popular MS slogan, but it really cuts to the core of the ugliest part of Microsoft (directly reflecting Bill's personality): Windows is the dried up rotten apple that restrained the PC, and all we can wonder is "Where would it be today if Microsoft had not brutalized and monopolized all competition?" Thank God there was Linux, or the PC would never have made it to the new millennium. So I am slanted. Very slanted. I prefer to spend ALL my time "creating and producing" rather than "repairing and reinstalling" a crippled operating system like MicroSlop. Nor do I want to waste my RAM "chasing viruses" or waiting on "hour-glasses" clicking by (Macs are TOTALLY immune to viruses, and require no scanning software for protection)* I am not a Mac advocate without regard to excellence. I am openly critical of Mac when Mac is bad, and will abandon the whole system the day Linux exceeds its performance (with graphics). The whole Mac OS-X operation is a sham (and a shame). It has as many loopholes and flaws as Windows does, and you cannot remove the core "personal websharing" or built-in Java from OSX. That means if you use OSX, anyone (for the first time in Mac history) can "grab whatever they want" from your hard drive, while you are on line just like they can with Windows. Fortunately you can remove (or temporarily disable) these windows-type "back doors" from all Mac OS versions below X (OS8x, 9x). The result runs fine (and LOTS faster) on any existing Mac models (as of this date). But at this moment, there is nothing on the planet that outperforms a non-X Mac on security, privacy, graphics processing speed or speech. So I am 100% Mac. .... until?
2. The other "slant" of my version of history is that I believe the government of America has become a very dark and ugly Police State. This is an indirect result of U.S. governmental inability to evolve socially, as fast as the computer evolved technologically. Simple Alvin Toffler "Future Shock" dynamics. But America is also taking an Orwellian shortcut route to a darker future, as a direct result of the ultimate high-tech pervert: George Bush (senior that is, junior has no clue what a computer is, nor how to spell it). George is America's worst enemy, the free Internet's worst enemy, and world freedom's worst enemy. When George took over the CIA in 1976, he never let go, not even during the 12 years he spent in the White House. Even as vice-president, Bush's CIA successor, William Casey was just a straw man standing in to take George's directives. Ever since George started Zapata Oil in the 1950s, he has been an enemy of freedom, life, liberty, and "the pursuit of happiness". He had gunmen killing people in Central America by 1957. He had gunmen killing people in Southeast Asia over Gulf of Tonkin Oil by 1959, even before America sent in its troops due to George's bad advice. When Kennedy wanted to take the soldiers back out of Vietnam in 1963, George took care of that, too. Freedom interferes with George's worldwide oil, copper and "banana republic" profits. When freedom threatened George's copper mine interest in Chile, George had president Salvador Allende assassinated, and installed Pinochet. Freedom interferes with Bush's ability to silently rape the planet's natural resources without concern for the environment. Freedom interferes with Bush's cut of Southeast Asian and Central American drug trade. Freedom inhibits George's obsession with murdering pro-democracy residents throughout Central America and other developing 3rd world countries. But the computer enhances freedom by bringing people (and thus, the truth) together past all geographic boundaries and restraint. That openness is a direct threat to greedy fascist murdering tyrants like George, so he has shackled the computer with his own inhibiting innovations: The clipper chip, the Intel 3 chip ID, Echelon, and Carnivore. They are all in direct violation of every spirit in the bill of rights, but George despises that constitution almost as much as he hates a Catholic with the annoying desire to be free. We Americans may have fired George's ass in 1992, but he is back. Americans voted his son "out of office" too in 2000 by an overwhelming majority, but George Sr. blackmailed the Supreme Court into overthrowing the election. The first coup de etat in America. Nothing is too big a problem for George. If the extortion dossiers he has collected on all members of congress and Federal agencies since 1976 are not enough to get an edge, he uses the vast surveillance network in place. Echelon allows him to selectively read the e-mail of every Frenchman who interferes with his Asian oil business. If they do not succumb to threats, he buys off their whores and gets them prosecuted in the French court limelight. This is the real danger of the computer. There is little life-threatening risk from the small numbers of user-abusers, virus-builders, hackers, and bad software designers. But there is a very real threat against privacy, and America (which is on paper, privacy's best guarantor) is now actually privacy's worst enemy. Benjamin Franklin, whom created the US Mail, believed that mail privacy was the paramount concern of the government, citizens, and industry. George Bush believes that all communications are his own voyeuristic privilege. Not just the USA, but throughout the world. Believe me. No matter how high up you are in foreign business or government, the American "intelligence community" can read your mail, and monitor every form of communication you use. It has developed an arsenal of e-technology just to assure it can, and maintains a "flotilla" of orbiting space-junk to bear its data load. They have the keys to the "clipper chip" (now in all US phones and modems), thus, the phone scrambler, all PGP encryption (except the original Zimmerman version, which the USA outlawed)** And now, he has your e-mail and corporate mail. The French government recently sued the USA's CIA, Echelon, and NSA because they had "read their mail" and used the information to subvert French Oil interests in the East. There are more US satellites devoted to world communications surveillance than there are optical links in GTE. Bush's voyeur-perverts in several obtrusive non-accountable agencies can "read" you, "hear" you, (and increasingly, even "see" you simultaneously) ANYWHERE, anytime. analog telephone, mobile radio link, cellular link, satellite link, or digital/optic. No matter how short the distance, if you utilize any telephone, radio, satellite, cellular, DNS, FTP, POP3 or SMTP, with or without encryption, . . . . "Big Brother George" is watching you. He is definitely NOT your friend. And he does not like the Truth. Never ask "for whom the privacy bell tolls". No matter where it takes a bite out of privacy, it tolls for you.
Those are my "slants". Those are prejudices. I hate to tell you, but what I say about Bush and the present Federal agencies is absolutely true. Whether or not you believe this makes them evry bit as deviant as Stalin or Hitler requires judgment and opinion. Still, having this knowlege in mind, and an agenda to "include its effects" in my version of history constitutes "bias". This affects my view of history (and the predictions I make based on current events). So I am slanted. But there is no such thing as "clean history". Every chronology that is created by man has bias. Historical bias is either carried in overt phrases like: "The treachery and cruelty of the Japanese occupation in China created an opportunity for Mao to succeed". Or bias can be more subtle, interjecting judgmental terms like: "The Japanese barbarians invaded Manchuria". I prefer the overt, or at least, to have the bias announced in all honesty, as I am doing here. So you have it.
But it is very easy to verify what may seem to be incredible in any or all of the above, including Bush. Open your browser, go to Yahoo.com, and search for any of these phrases, and page through the most reputable links your query uncovers (use caps and/or Boolean terms "() AND" as implied):
Re: "MS creation of Windows OEM on a Mac" search for: "Windows 95 AND Macintosh 6100/DOS"
Re: "The Big Brother Bush Mob" search for: "George Bush AND Richard Nixon" "Bush AND Iran-Contra" "Bush AND Khomeini" "Bush AND Hostages" "Bush AND CIA" "George Bush AND Chile" "George Bush AND Pinochet" "CIA AND Pinochet" "George Bush AND cocaine" "George Bush AND crack cocaine" "George Bush AND heroin" "CIA AND cocaine" "CIA AND crack cocaine" "CIA AND heroin" "Echelon AND NSA" "Echelon AND CIA" "Clipper Chip" "Carnivore AND NSA" "Carnivore AND FBI" "Intel 3 CPU ID AND NSA" "George Bush AND Hitler" (the latter connection is his father-in-law, who was one of Hitler's best US banking/trading partners during WW2). Those are all facts, all Bush, all history. The next one is not history, because someone made most of the facts dissappear, in a way that only the CIA can "erase" things.
For the ultimate puzzles, follow all the links on this search: "Bush AND Kennedy". Peculiar how many questions are raised here. Reach your own logical conclusions based on the evidence. My last word on that subject is this: If he had not killed his brother also, all recent history would be quite different. All of the Bush boys would be in prison right now (Daddy, Jr., Jeb, AND the lesser known billion-dollar S & L felon, Neil). Consequently, both your computer AND telephone line would also be free of "ears". Be a nice world, wouldn't it, if people had to pay for their crimes?
** BTW, when I left America in 1997 to live in Europe, I placed the original (Zimmerman) version of Mac PGP on a public server here in Europe, for free public access. It is the ONLY version that cannot be de-coded or de-crypted (there are no built-in "FBI, CIA, NSA access keys). An army of 1000 NSA geek-freaks, working day and night for centuries could never open one e-mail encrypted with this software! (unlike all subsequent releases which have US Federal access "key ports"). Write me, and I will tell you where to get it. (Sorry, I didn't get the PC version... only Mac, of course).