The Precursors of MIThril

MIThril, a borglab production. Richard W. DeVaul, Jonathan Gips, Michael Sung, Sandy Pentland

examples of early "wearable" computers

1650 The Slide Rule

slip-stick analog

The first slide rule was created by two Englishmen, Edmund Gunter and the reverend William Oughtred. The slide rule was based on John Napier's logarithm's. The Slide Rule was the first modern analog computer. http://www.webcom.com/calc/ "Abacus and Slide Rule"

1762 Harrison Chronometer

navigation, time, and an amazing 18th century hacker

1762 John Harrison, invents the pocket chronometer. The Chronometer was the first portable, reliable, time keeping device which allowed mariners to determine their longitudinal position.

1947 Curta Mechanical Pocket Calculator

portable mechanical calculation

The Curta, which looks similar to a small metal pepper-mill, performs mathematical calculations mechanically using no electric or electronic parts.

1966 Eudaemonic Pie

Ed Thorp and Claude Shannon are really smart

1966 Ed Thorp and Claude Shannon reveal their invention of the first wearable computer, used to predict roulette wheels [MIT]

1978 Eudaemonic Enterprises

the first digital shoe computer

1978 Eudaemonic Enterprises invents a digital wearable computer in a shoe to predict roulette wheels [Eudaemonic Enterprises] Using a CMOS 6502 microprocessor with 5K RAM, Eudaemonic Enterprises (Doyne Farmer, Norman Packard, and others) created a shoe computer with toe-control and inductive radio communications with between a data taker and better.

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A Short History of Wearable Computers
Bradford J Snow and Richard W. DeVaul
The second annual "I Wanna Be a Cyborg" event, a borglab production.