The SunShine Time Line is a normal text file to make it easier for you
to search for when individual events occurred.  It is intended to be used
by the Windows Notepad, in which case you have to close it manually by
double-clicking on the upper left corner of the Notepad window.


IN THE BEGINNING...

...the bit (binary digit) was discovered by Adam and Eve.  It was literally
a digit, a finger on one of their hands, which they could extend or bend,
thus signifying 1 or 0.

1646-1716 - German Gottfried Leibniz formally described the binary
numerical system, which uses only 1's and 0's to represent numbers.

1770 - Hungarian Baron Wolfgang von Kempelen displayed The Turk, a supposed
chess-playing machine, which turned out to be a fraud.  It had a midget
inside. 

1854 - British mathematician George Boole published how logic could be
manipulated with the use of symbols, such as 1, for true, and 0, for
false.  It is now called Boolean Algebra.

1890 - Spainard Leonardo Torres y Quevedo invented a King-Rook v. King
chess-playing machine.

1938 - American Claude Shannon published how 1's and 0's could be used in
communications.

1939 - American John Atanasoff used vacuum tubes to represent bits.

1946 - Alan Turing developed a chess program, before a computer existed
to run it.

1946 - American John Mauchly used the vacuum-tube idea in the Electronic
Numerical Integrator And Calculator (ENIAC), the first all electronic
general purpose computer.\par

1948 - Resister invented at Bell Telephone Laboratories by J. Bardeen and
W.H. Brattain.

1949 - American Claude Shannon published his chess algorithms, which are
the basis of many chess programs.

1971 - John Draper discovered that a whistle in Captain Crunch cereal boxes
could be used to make the 2600 hertz tone to manipulate long distance phone
calls.

1974 - Intel released the first chip which was used in personal computers,
the 8080.

1975, January - The first personal computer was announced, the Altair.

1976 - CP/M (Control Program for Microcomputers) released.

1978 - Intel released the 8086, which would be widely used in IBM compatible
computers.

1980, August 21 - IBM contacts Microsoft to write programming language
software for its proposed personal computer.

1980, October - Microsoft proposed to IBM to write DOS.

1980, November - IBM agreed to have Microsoft write DOS.

1981, February - DOS first runs on a computer.

1981, August - IBM releases the Personal Computer and DOS (Disk Operating
System), written by Microsoft.

1981 - The US Supreme Court okays software patents.

1982 - Versions 1.1 and 1.25 of DOS released.

1983, March - Version 2.0 of DOS released.

1984, August - Version 3.0 of DOS released.

1984, November - Version 3.1 of DOS released.

1986, January - Version 3.2 of DOS released.

1990, May - Version 5.0 of DOS released.

1991, June - Version 3.0 of Windows released.

1992, March - OS/2 Version 2.0 released.

1992, April - Windows 3.1 released.

1992, Fall - AT&T announced the 3600 Telephone Security Device which
provides encryption without law enforcement access.

1993, April - OLE 2.0 released.

1993, April - Plug and Play 0.9 released.

1993, May - OS/2 2.1 released (supports Windows 3.1).

1993, July - Windows NT released.

1993, October - Windows for Workgroups 3.11 released.

1993, December 9 - Alan Ashton steps down as president and chief executive
officer of WordPerfect and is replaced by Ad Rietveld.

1994, February 4 - The Clinton Administration approves the Clipper Chip
program.

1994, March 22 - Teledesic plan announced to cover the Earth with
satellites.

1994, March 22 - Novell announces plans to buy WordPerfect and Quatro Pro.