#4: Digital

The word digital comes from the Latin word digitus, meaning "finger" or "toe."

In ancient times (as today), people found those digits useful for keeping track of numbers.

Fast forward a couple of thousand years to the 1970s, when digital products – such as clocks displaying information with numerals rather than hands – entered the home. The revolution had begun.

According to one report,

"Those magical merchandisers of space-age technology who slipped a pocket calculator under every other Christmas tree last year are trying to repeat the trick this season with digital watches. Or, as they put it: 'time calculators.'" — Tom Zito, Washington Post, December 14, 1975