The discoveries of the first 100 exoplanets by precise radial velocities in the late 1990's at Lick Observatory and Observatoire de Haute-Provence were enabled by several technological advances and a cultural one. A key ingredient was a cross-dispersed echelle spectrometer at a stable, coude focus, with a CCD detector, offering high spectral resolution, large wavelength coverage, and a linear response to photons. A second ingredient was a computer capable of storing the megabyte images from such spectrometers and analyzing them for Doppler shifts. Both Lick and OHP depended on these advents. A third ingredient was a stable wavelength calibration. Here, two technologies emerged independently, with iodine gas employed by Marcy's group (used first by solar physicists doing helioseismology) and simultaneous thorium-argon spectra (enabled by fiber optics) used by Mayor's group. A final ingredient was a new culture emerging in the 1990's of forward-modeling of spectra on computers, enabled by the well-behaved photon noise of CCDs, giving Poisson errors amenable to rigorous statistical algorithms for measuring millipixel Doppler shifts. The prospect of detecting the 12 meter/sec reflex velocity (1/100 pixel) of a Jupiter-like planet was considered impossible, except to a few who asked, "What actually limits Doppler precision?". Inspired insights were provided by Robert Howard, Paul Schechter, Bruce Campbell, and Gordon Walker, leading to the first 100 exoplanets.
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