Monday, June 13, 2005
The IT Trivia Bite - from Deepak Bhaskaran.
Hi All,
Over quite some time, requests had been pouring in for having quizzes dedicated to a particular subject, IT in particular.
Well, here we are.
Deepak Bhaskaran from Chennai had been posting his IT quizzes on the popular Quizzing communities for quite some time.
This week, we bring to you the first set of his compilation.
Hope you find them interesting.
Folks, presenting the IT Trivia Bite from Deepak Bhaskaran.
Questions:
1. What was named Time man of the year in the year 1982 ?
Ans : The Personal Computer. (IBM’s PC)
2. Edgser Dikjstra laid the foundation stone in the march towardscreating structure in the domain of programming by writing, not ascholarly paper on the subject, but instead a letter to the editorentitled "---- Statement Considered Harmful". ?
Ans: “GOTO” ; in computer Terminology.
3.This game upon release was responsible for riots in Japan along with coin shortage. The country had to quadruple Yen production to keep up. In America, videogames were introduced in department stores for the first time to cope with its popularity? (Clue: Not Tetris, or PONG… Guess Guess Guess)
Ans: The Correct Answer is “Space Invaders” but even PACMAN fits the Bill.
4. Ok, A sitter for all you Game Freaks .. Expand “K.O” ?
(Clue: Remember all those Mortal Combat and D.O.A .. at last you have a chance to redeem yourself)
Ans: Knock Out (This phrase is the Only Consistent Keyword across every Fighter Games and also thanks to Boxing Mania)
5. Developed by 25 year old college graduate Jordan Mechner who created the story, characters and levels this game took four years to make. His father composed the music and he video taped his brothers motions in order to make the animation realistic. Initially produced on Appel II, it later made almost all platforms. What? [Hint: The game had to be completed in 60 minutes and cheat Codes are “Megahit”]
Ans: Prince Of Persia (The latest 3D Version is So Riveting, esp. on the XBOX)
6. Bell Telephone Labs joined a project with MIT and General Electricwhich it later dropped out of in April 1969. Two of its programmerscontinued working on a similar project on their own and even named itas a joke on their earlier project. They presented a paper on this workat the 1973 SIGOPS conference which won the best paper award that year. What was the project?
Ans: The Paper Being Presented was on Unix.
7. Which British computing brain died of Cyanide poisoning after being arrested and tried for homosexuality?(Clue: Go Step By Step, in a State wise manner)
Ans: Yes, ALAN TURING. (The Turing Machine is a State wise machine wherein the Next progression depends on the output of the previous state.)
8. What method of signaling with two flags, used at sea, called?
Ans: Semaphore (Semaphore, is the method using for Various Synchronization Mechanisms, wherein any operations being performed on same resources are done in a Simultaneous methodology to avoid any Clashes, etc)
9. The HAL 9000 computer, the inimitable star of the classic Kubrick and Clarke film "2001: A Space Odyssey," Was and is the computer of the FUTURE. But what we don’t realize is that HAL was named due to a specific reason …. WHAT ???? (CLUE: MENSA and the next Question)
Ans:
(a) In the standard English alphabet, the letters H, A, and L immediately precede the letters I, B, and M, respectively.
(b) IBM is the technology giant in question, a company often mistakenly credited as the basis for the HAL 9000's three-letter name. In the standard English alphabet, the letters H, A, and L immediately precede the letters I, B, and M, respectively.
The coincidence is so striking that many have often assumed that the HAL initials are a veiled reference to Big Blue. The fact that a number of fake IBM products appear in the film—including several monitors and a spacesuit control—only served to reinforce this assumption.
In actuality, HAL's real-world creator, Arthur C. Clarke, and his instructor in the novel, Dr. Chandra, both profess that the HAL name is shorthand for heuristic algorithm, purportedly the mathematical principle that serves as the basis for HAL 9000's artificial intelligence. Clarke has also gone on record to say that, had he noticed the IBM-HAL connection before the release of the film or novel, he would have named the computer something else.
If there's any actual connection between HAL and IBM that's intentional, it's perhaps the one most cleverly obscured. As embattled astronaut Dave Bowman slowly disconnects the HAL 9000's processors, the computer noticeably regresses in intelligence, ultimately clinging to one of its first "lessons" in human interaction—a song.
That song, "A Bicycle Built for Two," was actually the first song "sung" by any computer—a feat accomplished at Bell Laboratories in 1961 by an IBM 7094 computer. The touch is a subtle nod to computer history, if not IBM itself.
And just to hammer home the point, when Clarke penned the sequel to 2001 in 1982, 2010: Odyssey Two, he didn't name HAL's twin the HAL 9001 or the HAL 9000-B but instead chose SAL 9000. Whether that will put the HAL-IBM issue to rest is a matter of debate—and of great Geek Trivia.
10. Incorporated as Computing-Tabulating-Recording company in 1911, it formally changed its name in 1924. How do we better know this company today?
Ans: IBM
11. Released on 22 March 93.. Ted Hoff and Fedricco Faggin designed the first one for usiom of Japan. It was originally to be called 80586, Razor,Prochip & Intellect. What are we discussing?
Ans: Pentium . Well, it seems that there was an open contest for Naming this among all the company employees and this was the Winning Entry.
12. The phrase was originated by John Seybold and popularized at Xerox PARC during the late 1970s when the first WYSIWYG______ editor, Bravo was created on the Alto. The Alto monitor (72 pixels per inch) was designed so that one full page of text could be seen and then printed on the first laser printers. When the text was laid out on the screen 72 PPI font metric files were used, but when printed 300 PPI files were used -- thus one would occasionally find characters and words slightly off, a problem that continues to this day. (72 PPI came from the standard of 72 "points" per inch used in the commercial printing industry.) Seybold and the researchers at PARC were simply re-appropriating a popular catchphrase of the time originated by "Geraldine", a character on The Flip Wilson Show, (1970-1974). What phrase did Seybold coin ?
Ans: What You See Is What You Get
13. A word origin question: William Gibson, in his famous novel Necromancer, coined a word that has become very popular. What word?
Ans: NEUROMANCER
14. What is the Middle Name of Linus Torvalds?
Ans: Benedict.
15. Invented by IBM engineer, Alan Shugart. It was used initially to hold microcode and diagnostics for the IBM mainframe computer systems. It got a nick name due to its flexibilty and that is the name by which we know it today. What? (Clue: a Cheaper cousin of what we discussed today)
Ans. The FLOPPY DISK
16. In 1983, the subscribers of PC World received a free demo floppy with the magazine. This was probably the first time in history that a magazine featured a floppy bind in. Now a days this practice is pretty common with magazines giving away CDs instead of floppies. What product was introduced to the subscribers via that floppy?
ANS : WORD for MSDOS 1.0
17. It could have been: Calex, Elcal, Calecom, Elcom, Calcomp, Digicom, Tronicom, Comptek, Computek, Esscotek or Ectek. But what name was finally chosen for this startup?
Ans. Intel
18. How and where would you most probably read the following:
“And the beast shall come forth surrounded by a roiling cloud of vengeance. The house of the unbelievers shall be razed and they shall be scorched to the earth. Their tags shall blink until the end of days.”
Ans. Anything ranging from the “BOOK of MOZILLA” or in case you TYPE “about:mozilla” upon either NETSCAPE, FIREFOX, etc etc …
19. What from the Robyn and Rand miller created a revolution in the Gaming industry? What is their latest creation?
ANS: “MYST “ The first interactive game which entirely ran on the CD (or I could be wrong).
Robyn and Rand found the Cyan Corporation. With their Stupendous animation and intellect these people created Games which stimulated the Brain rather than degraded it with Guns, etc..
20. Akio Morita wrote “Made in Japan”; an amazing bio wherein he lists out his struggles at bring SONY to the current standards, etc, etc. Who wrote “Made in America” ?
ANS: Sam Walton.
21. Back in late 50s, John W. Backus lead an IBM team of talented programmers to produce a mathematical Formula Translating system. Backus proposed a programming language that would allow users to express their problem as a mathematical formulae and it was initially meant mainly for scientific programming. How do we better know it ?
Ans. FORMULA TRANSLATION. FORTRAN…
