      A Brief Rundown of Computer Related History.
                         by Sean Golden
                    (All dates approximate)

4000 BC - Metal is discovered and promptly exploited by the 
military-industrial complex. 

3000 BC - Egyptians invent the first mass storage devices. 
Many of these pyramid shapes still litter the desert 
landscape. 

2000 BC - Gilgamesh Gates invents Marketing, and becomes the 
world's richest proto-nerd. 

1000 BC - The great philosopher Aristotle proves that 
computers cannot exist.  His work is later examined and it is 
determined that he was confused by hexadecimal notation and 
forgot to carry a "B." 

500 BC - Early Etruscan scientists invent the first computer 
virus, but have no hardware on which to test it. 

50 BC - The Greek Empire suffers information overload and 
crumbles under the weight of billions of megabytes of high-
density stone tablets. 

500 AD - The Roman Empire is torn apart by a violent debate 
over command line and graphical user interfaces. 

750 AD - The Byzantine Empire establishes the first user-
interface standards by cutting off the hands of any person 
caught with a mouse. 

1000 AD - Chinese efforts to create the first computer input 
device are frustrated by text-only resolution. 

1250 AD - Viking raiders accidentally sail into the Great 
Lakes of North America when their Global Positioning System 
cannot make the proper satellite links. 

1500 AD - Christopher Columbus collides with the "New World" 
after relying on faulty data entry routines. 

1750 AD - Benjamin Franklin notices that a blast of lightning 
makes a "cold" key "hot," inadvertantly discovering the binary 
code. 

1850 AD - Charles Babbage designs the first "Computing 
Machine" and creates the computer development process.  This 
process is as follows: 
1. Get a government grant. 
2. Sell the idea to investors. 
3. Redesign the idea from scratch. 
4. Run into technical problems. 
5. Overspend your budget. 
6. Miss every possible deadline. 
7. Never complete the project. 

1900 AD - Thomas Edison proves that computers cannot be built, 
but like Aristotle before him, later inspection determines 
that Edison simply fell asleep during a key computation and 
never bothered to finish it. 

1950 AD - The first computer is built, but it is so big and 
expensive that many scientists are heard to mutter "Dang, 
Edison may have been right after all." 

1975 AD - The first personal computer is built, but it is so 
small and cheap that major computer builders are heard to 
exclaim "Ha!  Who would want one of those dinky things!?" 

1985 AD - The mouse is first popularized by the Apple 
Macintosh.  Although the Byzantine Empire had long since 
dissolved, much talk is made about re-instituting their 
interface guidelines. 

1990 AD - Computers are now so commonplace and necessary that 
many people are heard to mutter "Dang, I wish Aristotle and 
Edison had been right after all!" 

                        --END--

