Foreword

My first encounter with a computer dates back to an ORIC-1 in 1983. Shortly after came an Apple IIc, during the very first computer literacy classes in primary school. I was fortunate. LOGO and BASIC were my first windows into programming. Back then, we bought books filled with source code that had to be copied line by line, saved on cassette, then debugged: syntax error. Buying compiled programs on cassette would have cost a fortune. With all these new words, I also remember wondering what the difference was between software (logiciel) and Loriciel, that French company that published video games founded in 1983. Everything was confusing.

Decades later, having become an information systems architect, I manipulate technologies daily whose origins I often knew nothing about. I knew how they worked, how to configure and assemble them. But the original context of their creation remained in the shadows. So I started asking myself the same types of questions I ask daily in my work. What problems were those who invented them facing? What needs or frustrations drove them to seek new solutions? These questions remained unanswered.

So I began reading and compiling articles, official manufacturer documents, scripts from international conferences, ISO standards, and RFCs. More than 3,750 documents scrutinized. Gradually, the volume took shape. Enough to fill a book. This compilation was no longer just a personal curiosity but had become a project of transmission.

On the internet, 38% of web pages that existed in 2013 are now inaccessible. Information is crumbling away. Recording this knowledge in a book, under a free license no less, represents for me a way to preserve what risks disappearing. Copyleft seemed the most appropriate response: knowledge must circulate, be shared, and grow richer through readings and reuses.

I therefore chose to approach each technology from the angle of the problem to be solved. By addressing the context that leads to innovation, we can show that the history of computing is not a succession of abstract technical feats. It is a human story, made of concrete constraints and often pragmatic responses.

The book is built around 350 technologies, presented chronologically in the form of chronicles. Each can be read independently of the others, maintaining its unity so that readers can navigate as they wish. The idea was to make the work usable as a resource that one consults according to their interests of the moment, or simply in order by following the timeline.

This second edition is enriched with more than 250 technologies. The choices inevitably reflect my own sensibilities and my journey. Telling everything would be utopian. It was necessary to make cuts, select, give up, and there are still so many things to tell. Technologies that appeared after 2010 are too recent in my opinion for us to truly judge their historical weight. Perspective is lacking. This is why they are less represented in these pages.

This book addresses several audiences. First, enthusiasts of the history of science and technology will find material to explore. Innovation professionals, consultants, those working in research and development will see patterns of evolution that repeat themselves. Teachers and trainers in computer science will be able to draw on it as a resource for their courses. Students in engineering schools or at university will have structured learning material. Intellectually curious people attracted by tales of discoveries and inventors will not be left out. And investors or entrepreneurs in the technology sector may discover the innovation cycles that foreshadow coming disruptions.

EPOCH, in the computing sense of the term, designates a starting point from which time begins to be counted. This book aims to be a landmark in understanding our technological heritage. A landmark among others, certainly, but a landmark that establishes a history.