1. Some men in the computer business wear earrings. Of the following, who does not wear an earring? Jean Louise Gassee, Steven Wallach, Philippe Kahn
2. Only one person in all of computing's history has ever won both the ACM Turing Award for lasting technical achievement and the Grace Murray Hopper Award for work done prior to reaching the age of thirty. Who is that person?
3.A five and a quarter inch floppy disk has a write protect notch on its left side, when held for insertion into a horizontal disk drive. On an eight inch floppy disk, there is a write enable notch. Where is it located on the disk?
Programmers and Programming Languages
a. The 18th Annual International Collegiate Programming Contest was held earlier this year in Phoenix. The following four universities were among the entrants. Harvard, MIT, Yeshiva, and the University of Waterloo. Which one came in First?
b. I can think of at least three programming languages which were named after real people. Can you name three?
c. The programming language FORTH is spelled F O-R-T H. When it was first named, it was called FOURTH spelled F O U R T H. Why did they change it'?
4. A recent report on computers in public schools rated the fifty states on how many computers are available in school per student. Of these four states, which one ranked number one? Alaska, California, Minnesota, or Massachusetts?
5. According to Red Herring Magazine, one hi-tech company led all others last year in raising venture capital, raising $35 million in the first three quarters of 1993. What company was that?
IBM
a.1993 may not have been the best year for IBM but the company did distinguish itself by being number one worldwide in a very significant way. In what way?
b. IBM was traditionally a stock market favorite. But in this decade it announced its first ever quarterly loss. Give me that year and the quarter.
c. At IBM's San Jose labs, while developing the platters for their RAMAC hard disk, they had to figure out a way to control the grain size of the oxide particles. They came up with an innovative solution. Was it using a colander, sifting them through a pair of nylons, or polishing each grain to size?
1. Robots have been popular characters in movies for many years. Of the following four movies - Target Earth, Silent Running, Journey to the Center of the Earth, and Space Camp, which one did not feature a robot?
2. According to the book, the Green PC, what is the annual cost for generating the electricity it takes to run all the world's personal computers? Is it $900 million, $1.5 billion, $4.6 billion, or $10 billion?
3. What is the result of the multiplication of these two numbers 11 and 11, expressed in base 89?
4. One of the earliest word processors was written by a company named Lifetree Software. What was it called?
Computers in Print
a. One of today's well known computer trade magazines used to be called the Intelligent Machines Journal. What is that magazine called today?
b. Way back in 1945, Nearly fifty years ago, an article appeared in the Atlantic Monthly entitled "As we may think". In that article the author predicted the PC, distributed databases, and hypertext. Who was the author of that article?
c. In the book Jurassic Park, by Michael Crichton, a supercomputer is used for DNA sequencing. What brand of supercomputer is used?
5. The following three movies, all at least 25 years old, all had computer themes. Desk Set, Gog, and Billion Dollar Brain. Can you list those movies in chronological order, oldest first?
6. The PDP-10 is a well known mini computer. What was its immediate predecessor called?
Computers in the Movies
I'll tell you the computer angle in the story. You give me the title of the movie:
a. Actor George Segal has a computer implanted in his brain in this 1974 movie based on a book.
b. Two teenagers use a computer to create a woman in this 1985 movie.
c. In this 1967 Walt Disney Movie, an electrical accident dumps the contents of a computer's memory into the brain of a college student played by Kurt Russell.
7. We are all familiar with the term ATM standing for Automatic Teller Machine. But way back in the 1950's, The Bank of America installed one of the first computerized banking systems, built by GE. It was called ERMA. What did the letters ERMA stand for?
1. If you are a movie trivia buff, you probably know the phrase "Klaatu barada nicktu". That phrase in fact appeared in two sci-fi movies. Can you name both of them?
2. In 1993 a front page New York Times article reported that a Long Island computer programmer, named Michael Lafaro, used a novel technique to persuade one of his clients to pay a past due consulting bill. What did he do?
On-Line Services
a. Late last year, one of the major on-line services was acquired by an international media magnate. Which service, which magnate?
b. The current presidential administration in Washington has strongly identified itself with the Information Superhighway. In fact you can e-mail President Clinton on the Internet. What is the President's Internet address?
c. What, or who, are Archie and Veronica?
4. Doug Engelbart is credited with designing the first computer mouse. How many buttons were there on that mouse?
5. Can you identify this important computer artifact? (Presenter holds up a cable)
6. The Victor 9000 computer featured an innovative design in its disk drives. What was unique about the disk drives?
Software
a. Intel entered the software market this year with its first ever end user PC software product. What is it called?
b. A US. software company recently received the first ever copyright for a computer program that generates type fonts. What's the name of the company?
c. What was the internal code name for Borland's Quattro spreadsheet?
7. The market research firm "Computer Intelligence" released a report on the most popular brands of IBM compatible PC's in the United States in 1993. It reported that IBM had the largest market share and Compaq was second. Which computer company came in third?
8. In 1976, a computer fair was held in Atlantic City, New Jersey. At that show Steve Jobs ripped his blue jeans. Another attendee came to his rescue and sewed them up. Who was that good Samaritan - was it Steve Wozniak, Miss America, Stan Veit, or Stan Veit's mother in law?
1. In 1963 Tandy bought Radio Shack. How many stores were in the Radio Shack chain at that time. Was it 9, 15, 26, or 42?
2. There are several consumer oriented on-line services available today. But one of the original on-line systems was Compuserve. In what year did Compuserve first go on line. Was it 1969, 1971, or 1974?
Computer Industry Personalities
a. IBM has often been known as a company that tries hard to protect its trade secrets. That policy apparently applies to people too. When Louis Gerstner was among the final nominees for the top job at Big Blue, he was given an internal code name. What was that code name? Able, Little Blue, Cyberkid, or Blackbird?
b. Who is generally credited with having coined the term "Virtual Reality"?
c. Scott Page is one of the founders of Seventh Level, a company which sells interactive multimedia entertainment software. At one time Page played sax for a popular rock group. Which group?
3. The New York Times was one of the first newspapers to switch from hot type to computerized typesetting. The first computer type set edition his the stands on July 2nd... of what year?
4. Parts of a famous historical computer have appeared on television in the sci-fi series "Time Tunnel" and "Lost in Space". What machine was it?
5. Among the many acronyms in the computer field is this one: F-T-P. What does FTP stand for?
Computer Games
a Sega is now the dominant company in 16-bit video game units in the United States. The name Sega is an acronym. What does it stand for?
b. When Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney started Atari Corporation in 1972, they each coughed up an equal amount of money. How much did they each put up? Was it in three figures, four figures, or five figures?
c. In 1990. a computer beat a world chess champion for the first time ever. Can you name the computer and the chess master?
6. What was the first commercially available computer with a twelve bit word? Was it the DEC PDP-8, the PDP-5, the LINC, or the CDC-160?
7. In 1993, Christie's auctioned off a computing artifact that went for $11.8 million. What was it. Your choice is: a Greek Calendar computer from the year 80 BC, a mechanical calculator from the 19th century, or a vacuum tube assembly from the ENIAC?
8. US. News and World Report recently asked engineering school deans to rank graduate schools to see which one had the best program in computer engineering. Who came in number one: was it Stanford, Carnegie Mellon, Caltech, or MIT?
9. One of the earliest spreadsheet programs was called "Sorcim". Who wrote it?
Reproduced by permission of ACM as part of a blanket permission for the reproduction of ACM printed materials to the Educational Infrastructure Grant of the Department of Computer Science, Virginia Tech, 1993, 1994.
Last updated 94/10/27