CFOP
F2L Pairs
The first known published description of corner and edge pairs appears in 1979 in two publications by John H. Conway, David J. Benson, and David J. Seal.
Solving the Hungarian Cube
The notation here is almost the same as the standard used now. Instead of U, D, L, R, F, B, they use U, B, L, R, O, Y in the same order. The names for the positions of the cube is also provided and is helpful for reading the algorithm tables.
Solving the Hungarian Cube in Less Than 100 Moves
Both publications contain tables for almost every possible position to form corner and edge pairs.
Proof of year for the publications.
This paragraph is found on page 32 of David Singmaster's Notes on Rubik's 'Magic Cube' and is dated 30 November 1979 on page 34.
The bibliography of Notes on Rubik's 'Magic Cube' says that the publication date for Solving the Hungarian Cube is "1980?". So with the above quote saying that Conway, Benson, and Seal "prepared" the article, Singmaster's question of the date 1980 likely means that he was trying to convey something like "will be published in 1980?".
Solving the Hungarian Cube in Less Than 100 Moves states on the second page "In fact we have now produced a proof using these methods that the cube can always be restored to its original position in at most 85 moves". In 1982's Winning Ways for Your Mathematical Plays Volume 4 in the Rubik's Hungarian Cube — Bűvös Kocka subchapter, it states "In the Extras you'll find lists of the shortest known words (improvements welcome!) to achieve any rearrangement, or any reorientation of the top layer. These are quoted from an algorithm due to Benson, Conway and Seal which guarantees to cure the cube in at most 85 moves". This is likely a reference to Solving the Hungarian Cube in Less Than 100 Moves. The bibliography of Notes on Rubik's 'Magic Cube' states for Winning Ways "This [is] said to be at the publishers and may appear in 1980...First draft, 16pp, 1979; Second draft, 15pp, 1980."
So with Solving the Hungarian Cube having likely been published in 1979 and Solving the Hungarian Cube in Less Than 100 Moves having an actual published first draft of 1979, that makes two publications in 1979 by Benson, Conway, and Seal that described the F2L pair technique along with cross and PLL then OLL.
I discovered those couple of sentences from the image above in Notes on Rubik's 'Magic Cube' then Georges Helm kindly helped me verify the Conway/Benson/Seal publications. I then noticed in their publications that they even had the complete F2L, PLL, and OLL tables as shown above. I guess it was a very easy thing to overlook because it is such a quick mention in Notes on Rubik's 'Magic Cube'.
*The above image is a screenshot of a re-typing by me of the Notes on Rubik's 'Magic Cube' quote.
The publications also describe PLL then OLL as the last layer method and algorithm tables are provided.
Solving the Hungarian Cube
Solving the Hungarian Cube in Less Than 100 Moves
About the authors.
David John Benson
John Horton Conway
David J Seal
The second known publication of the corner and edge pairs technique comes in June 1981 on page 41 of James G. Nourse's The Simple Solution to Rubik's Cube.
This one is only a mention of the idea with no strategies or sequences.
Thanks to Joseph Briggs for this information.
In July 1981 in the Slovenian magazine Teleks, the technique is described with some illustrations.
This article is written by Rok SosiÄŤ and Polona SosiÄŤ. Rok SosiÄŤ is credited as the creator of the technique.
Thanks to Joseph Briggs for this information. He received it from someone else in a private message on SpeedSolving.com.
In the September, 1981 issue of Cubism for Fun, the technique is described and credited to Rene Schoof.
Thanks to Georges Helm and Ron van Bruchem for this information.
According to Ron van Bruchem, it appears two months later in December 1981 in a book by Frans Schiereck called De Hongaarse Kubus Voor Doordraaiers.
Jessica Fridrich stated in 2003 that she learned of it from others in college.
Fridrich's first known online mention of the steps of the method.
Fridrich created a website for the method in January 1997.
OLL and PLL
OLL then PLL was independently developed starting in 1981. By Hans Dockhorn and Anneke Treep and also by Jessica Fridrich and Mirek Goljan.
This message is from Ron van Bruchem in July 2003 on the Speed Solving Rubik's Cube Yahoo! group.
This is from a conversation that I had with Guus Razoux Schultz.
Jessica Fridrich published the OLL and PLL algorithms in one of the 1982 issues of Mladý Svět.
Jessica Fridrich states on her website "Most of the algorithms were developed by myself during the time period between the summer 1981 and the spring of 1983. However, other speed cubists, most noticeably Mirek Goljan, have also significantly contributed with important moves."
OLL Numbering System
The OLL numbering system was initially created by Jessica Fridrich and expanded by the Japanese community.
Fridrich had the cases numbered on her site. Though mirrors weren't included, as was common during those years.
The complete numbering system, the numbers that are used today, come from the Japanese community.
This comes from the site of someone by the name of Naitsu. This site was linked to by Konishi Katsuyuki, which was linked to by Makisumi Shotaro who states that "the numbers are the ones used by Japanese speedcubers."
PLL Letter Names
The PLL letter names were created by Mirek Goljan and appear on Fridrich's site.
As with OLL, mirrored cases weren't included. The system of adding a lower case a, b, c, or d after the uppercase letter was added later by the community.
XCross and XXCross
XCross and XXCross were proposed by Chris Hardwick from 2003 - 2004
This was posted to the Speedsolving Rubik's Cube Yahoo group.
Edge Control
The idea of edge control started appearing at the beginning of the online communities.
The first message is from Dan Knights and the second is from Lars Vandenbergh.
It is likely that early talks of ensuring that the LL edges are oriented is that led to the ZBLS idea.
The earliest found mention of the term "edge control" is by Shotaro Makisumi starting in 2004.
This was posted to the Speedsolving Rubik's Cube Yahoo group. It is likely that others had also been experimenting with the technique. It's also possible that it was even being used, potentially by others in the Japanese community since there isn't a mention by Makisumi of whether he learned it from somewhere else.
Makisumi eventually created a page on his site to describe the technique.
Chris Hardwick also had a page on speedcubing.com in 2005 about edge control.
Pseudo Slotting
Olly Hayden discussed the technique and called it non-matching pairs in May, 2002
(In the paragraph starting with "As stated above")
This actually isn't the first discussion by Olly Hayden. It is only the first one remaining in the archived messages.
The Speed Solving Rubik's Cube Yahoo! group was originally part of Yahoo! Clubs. In 2001, Yahoo! purchased eGroups, another mailing list company. They merged to become Yahoo! Groups. This change also deleted a year and a half worth of messages. The group was started in June of 2000 and any messages after August 5, 2000 and before March 27, 2002 were deleted. On their website, Olly points out they first talked about non-matching pairs in message 144 of the Yahoo! group. This would have been one of the deleted messages.
It seems that the community became aware of Olly Hayden's messages and website. There are multiple instances on the Yahoo! group of others sharing the website.
Jessica Fridrich briefly mentioned the technique on her site on August 26, 2002
Thanks to Filipe Teixeira for finding this on Fridrich's website.
Source for the date that the above webpage was created
These are messages that were sent to the SpeedSolvingRubiksCube Yahoo group.
Instance of the technique being called "Non-Matching Pair" on Shotaro Makisumi's website.
The community starts calling the technique "slant pairing".
From the wording, it appears that Doug Li learned of the technique and that specific term from somewhere else.
This is the first of message in the archived Yahoo! group which includes the word "slant".
Chris Hardwick mentions that he learned of the technique from Olly Hayden.
