Below are a series of pairs of events. Your challenge is simply to say which of each pair happened first. Try to answer as many as possible without resorting to The Google.

• ARPAnet or Ethernet?

• “Go To Statement Considered Harmful” (Dijkstra) or the IBM System/360?

• The first instance of the same program being run on different computers from different vendors and producing the same result or Etch A Sketch?

• Gary Kildall creates the BIOS for CP/M or Cray delivers the first Cray-1 supercomputer?

• Tron (the original movie) or C++?

• Microsoft releases Windows or Apple “releases” Steve Jobs?

• The C Programming Language (K&R) or VisiCalc?

• Buck Rogers or Flash Gordon?

• The patenting of the integrated circuit or the first legal article on computer law?

• The Mosaic browser or Apple’s HyperCard?

• The birth of Fortran or the birth of William Henry Gates III?

• PHP or Ruby?

• The UNIVAC 1 or The Day the Earth Stood Still?

• The Soul of a New Machine (Tracy Kidder) or Thinking Machines Corporation (Danny Hillis)?

• Forth or The Art of Computer Programming Volume I: Fundamental Algorithms (Knuth)?

• Extreme Programming or Extreme Sports’ X Games?

• Tinkertoys or the use of magnetic tape for computer storage?

• The Shell Sort or color television?

• Yahoo or XML?

Answer to Last Month’s Quiz

Last month we presented a Sudoku puzzle with a twist—it used letters instead of digits and hidden within it was the name of a well-known person in personal computer history. The hidden name is Jef Raskin, in row 3: