1001 Amazing Tech Facts

Seagate presents

TRIVIA THAT GIVES YOU THE EDGE

Seagate presents

TRIVIA THAT GIVES YOU THE EDGE

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The f o l l o w i n g w r i t e r s at Digit compiled t h e 1001 t e c h facts: Aparna K r i s h n a k u m a r Garfield D'Souza Meera V a n k i p u r a m Ram Mohan Rao Robert S o v e r e i g n - S m i t h Srinivasan R a m a k r i s h n a n Suprotip Ghosh Upendra Singhai Copy Editors Ram Mohan Rao Syed Nadim Siraj Design and Layout Ashwin Boricha Shivshankar Pillai Sivalal S Photographs Mexy Xavier

© 2 0 0 4 Jasubhai Digital Media, Mumbai

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T E C H F A C T S

CONTENTS Topic

The History of Computing The Internet Networking Various Timelines Processors and Components Storage Operating Systems Companies and Personalities Supercomputer Displays Imaging Telephony Cellphones Entertainment Games Human Interface Devices Miscellaneous Tech Facts

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9 19 32 35 42 52 55 60 66 70 72 77 82 85 91 95 98

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INTRODUCTION In 1981, in an apparent m o m e n t of epiphany, William Henry Gates III told a gathering that in t h e future 6 4 0 KB of RAM ought to be e n o u g h for anybody. Today, Gates, o n e of t h e richest m e n in t h e universe, makes most of his m o n e y selling software so heavy even a Sumo wrestler would blush. Ergo, even t h e m o s t successful, or foresighted, people in t h e world are n o t infallible. Twenty-three years later, we don't really k n o w whether Gates is still h a u n t e d by that statement. W h a t we know for sure is that statements like these b e c o m e more t h a n just that, and people e x c h a n g e notes with malicious glee: "Did you know that Bill Gates was stupid enough to say this. I mean, how did he b e c o m e t h e richest m a n on earth?" This special compilation of 1 0 0 1 amazing t e c h n o l o g y facts is n o t filled with malice, but with stuff that would make you smile, raise your eyebrows, or, god forbid, make y o u exchange notes with malicious glee at that next Saturday night party. Technology, like most aspects of our life that pass us by and we take for granted, has history. Since t e c h n o l o g i c a l progress has b e e n fast e n o u g h to send every o n e of us into a tizzy, we tend to lose sight of t h e pioneers, of t h e technologies that changed our lives. This b o o k is m e a n t to bring us closer to reality, closer to our t e c h n o l o g y history, closer to t h e people w h o made it happen. We learn from history, and from those lessons alone alone can we shape our future. So sit back, put your feet o n t h e table, let your hair down, and let time pass you by. And yes, tell us if you didn't get t h a t smile o n your face.

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1 0 0 1 . Alan T u r i n g is considered the f a t h e r of C o m p u t e r Science, in 1937, he published t h e paper "On C o m p u t a b l e Numbers, w i t h an Appli cation t o t h e E n t s h e i d u n g s p r o b l e m " . 9 9 9 .

Beginning in 1934, Konrad Zuse, a G e r m a n engineer, built a series of c o m p u t e r s , t h e Z1 t h r o u g h Z4, utilising binary a r i t h m e t i c .

9987

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Claude Shannon is usually called the f a t h e r of I n f o r m a t i o n Tech nology. In 1948, he published "A M a t h e m a t i c a l T h e o r y of C o m m u n i c a t i o n " in t h e Bell System Technical J o u r n a l . The f i r s t high-level p r o g r a m m i n g language was Fortran. It was developed in 1956 by an IBM t e a m headed by J o h n Backus. Fortran became c o m m e r c i a l l y available in 1957. The first o b j e c t - o r i e n t e d language was Simula. It was developed by Kristen Nygaard and Ole-Johan Dahl in t h e mid 1960s.

3 9 5 .

1981 was t h e year t h a t PCs began, when IBM d e b u t e d the IBM PC. Microsoft shipped it w i t h BASIC. The o p e r a t i n g system, too, was developed by M i c r o s o f t .

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9 9 4 .

The f i r s t ' c o m p u t e r ' , t h e s t e a m - d r i v e n calculating machine, was built in 1823 by Charles Babbage.

9 9 3 .

C h r i s t o p h e r Pile was sentenced t o 18 m o n t h s f o r releasing a t o o l k i t t h a t w o u l d boost t h e impact of existing viruses by r a n d o m i sing t h e i r codes.

992.

990.

In 1951, J a y F o r r e s t e r and Robert Everett, g r a d u a t e s t u d e n t s at MIT, c o n s t r u c t e d t h e ' Whirlwind,' a 'real-time c o m p u t e r , ' w o r k i n g at twice t h e speed of t h e ENIAC. In 1969, c o m p u t e r f i r m Honey well released t h e H316 " K i t c h e n C o m p u t e r " , t h e f i r s t home c o m p u t e r , priced at

991. It is much debated whether any single person can be said to have invented the first computer. Examples of candidates are Charles Babbage and Konrad Zuse.

$10,600.

9 8 9 .

In 1976, the t e r m "personal c o m p u t e r " first appeared in print, in t h e May issue of Byte Magazine.

9 8 8 .

In 1981, while w o r k i n g on t h e original version of M i c r o s o f t ' s Disk O p e r a t i n g System (DOS), Bill Gates made a r e m a r k a b l e prediction: " 6 4 0 K (of RAM) should be e n o u g h f o r anyone."

9 8 7 .

The t e r m 'bug' was p r o b a b l y coined a f t e r A d m i r a l Grace Hopper

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f o u n d a m o t h in t h e Mark II c o m p u t e r at t h e US Naval Surface W a r f a r e Center, causing t h e machine t o m a l f u n c t i o n .

9 8 5 .

In 1970, Steve Wozniak played a huge prank by d i s t r i b u t i n g 2 5 , 0 0 0 leaflets for a non-exis t e n t c o m p u t e r , w h i c h was later r e f e r r e d t o as t h e Zaltair Hoax.

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J i m Knopf is known as t h e ' f a t h e r of shareware'. His f i r s t shareware p r o g r a m was PC-Fiie, in 1 9 8 2 , which Knopf published under t h e

9 8 4 .

pseudonym J i m Button. The ENIAC had 2 0 , 0 0 0 v a c u u m tubes and 4 0 racks of equipment, and ran up a daily electric bill of $ 6 0 , a large a m o u n t at the time, t h e mid 1940s.

9 8 3 .

The first c o m p u t e r t o p e r f o r m a t r i l l i o n opera tions per second was called t h e G r a v i t y Pipeline.

9 8 2 .

Les Solomon, publisher of t h e magazine Popular The first silicon Electronics, and Ed Roberts

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were looking for a name t o release their new c o m p u t e r under. They finally called it t h e Altair.

981.

Mitch Kapor f o u n d e d Lotus Development Corp. in 1982 with J o n a t h a n Sachs, w h o was i n s t r u m e n t a l in launching Lotus 1-2-3.

980.

Founder Paul Gavin came up w i t h t h e n a m e M o t o r o l a when his c o m p a n y s t a r t e d m a n u f a c t u r i n g radios for m o t o r c a r s .

9797 In 1989, Steve Chase, Founder of t h e I n t e r n e t

Bulletin-Board System Q u a n t u m C o m p u t e r Services, r e n a m e d it A m e r i c a Online.

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V i n t o n C e r f Is h a i l e d as t h e F a t h e r of t h e I n t e r n e t , a n d e a r n e d his n i c k n a m e w h e n he c o - a u t h o r e d , w i t h Dr R o b e r t K a h n i n 1 9 7 3 , a p a p e r t h a t g a v e t h e w o r l d T C P a n d IP. w

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9 7 7 .

On 4 t h J u l y , 1996, Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith launched Hotmail. In 1997, t h e y sold it t o Microsoft f o r an e s t i m a t e d price of $ 3 8 5 million.

9 7 6 .

AT&T Bell Labs was the first company to transmit human voice across the Atlantic, on January 25, 1915. The exercise was conducted to celebrate the open ing of the Panama Canal to Alexander Graham Bell.

9 7 4 .

9 7 3 .

975. In 1991, 4 5 0 complete works of literature were published on one CD-ROM.

Paul Allen, w h o c o - f o u n d e d M i c r o s o f t w i t h Bill Gates, is now t h e c h a i r m a n of Vulcan N o r t h w e s t , an i n v e s t m e n t f i r m . M a t h e m a t i c i a n Blaise Pascal a t t e m p t e d a u t o m a t e d c o m p u t i n g as early as 1642.

9 7 2 .

In 1993, t h e US D e p a r t m e n t of C o m m e r c e c r e a t e d InterNIC t o m a i n t a i n a c e n t r a l database t o c o n t a i n all registered d o m a i n names and IP addresses.

971.

In 1998, online p o r n o g r a p h y a c c o u n t e d f o r 8 0 percent of all ec o m m e r c e . However, the f i g u r e has t o d a y fallen t o 2 0 per cent.

9 7 0 .

Online p o r n o g r a p h y was a $1 billion i n d u s t r y in 1998.

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In August, 1995, Microsoft Windows 9 5 was released. It sold m o r e t h a n a million copies w i t h i n t h e f i r s t f o u r days of its launch.

2 0 0 4 saw Lindows changing its name to Linspire on April 14, after it lost a legal battle against Microsoft. 1 0 0 1

T E C H F A C T S

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In 2001, M i c r o s o f t filed a t r a d e m a r k suit against Lindows.com in December. It w o n t h e case in early 2 0 0 4 .

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THE HISTORY OF COMPUTERS AND COMMUNICATION

ARPANET, the first 'Internet', was launched in

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C o m p u t e r s w e r e sold c o m m e r cially f o r t h e f i r s t t i m e in 1951.

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AT&T m a n u f a c t u r e d t h e first c o m m e r c i a l m o d e m , t h e Bell 103, in 1962.

9 4 2 .

The w o r l d ' s first m i n i c o m p u t e r , Digital E q u i p m e n t ' s PDP-8, was i n t r o d u c e d in 1965, and cost a p h e n o m e n a l $18,000.

9 4 1 .

In 1966, Xerox i n v e n t e d t h e T e l e c o p i e r - t h e first successful fax machine.

9 4 0 .

The floppy disk was

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invented in 1971. 9 3 9 .

The m i c r o p r o c e s s o r was invented in 1971. The c r e a t i o n was considered a c o m p u t e r on a chip.

9 3 8 .

937. 935.

Cray Research Incorporated i n t r o d u c e d t h e first s u p e r c o m p u t e r in 1 9 7 6 - t h e Cray 1. It could p e r f o r m 2 4 0 million calculations per second. The Apple I h o m e c o m p u t e r was released in 1976.

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During t h e same year, Ted T u r n e r launched and i m p l e m e n t e d t h e first n a t i o n w i d e p r o g r a m m i n g - v i a satellite.

1981: The f i r s t IBM PC is sold. Laptop computers sold t o public for the first time.

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The first cellular phone c o m m u n i c a t i o n n e t w o r k was launched in J a p a n , in 1979.

9 3 3 .

Pacman, one of t h e most popular arcade games of all times, was released in 1980.

931.

9 3 0 .

9 2 9 .

Time magazine named t h e c o m p u t e r t h e Man of t h e Year in 1983. The f i r s t cellular phone n e t w o r k was launched t h e same year in the US.

932. BASIC was written in 1964 by Tom Kurtz and John Kemeny of Dartmouth.

The Apple Macintosh was released in 1984, along w i t h IBM PC AT. The US g o v e r n m e n t released c o n t r o l of t h e Internet in 1994, and t h e WWW was born.

928. 9 2 7 .

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Dr Brent T o w n s h e n d invented t h e 5 6 K m o d e m in 1996. The first business application t o go live on a s t o r e d - p r o g r a m c o m p u t e r was in N o v e m b e r 1951 w h e n t h e J Lyons c o m p a n y began weekly o p e r a t i o n of a bakery valuations job. The Z1, a pre-war electro mechanical binary c o m p u t e r designed by German i n v e n t o r K o n r a d Zuse, and its blue prints, w e r e d e s t r o y e d w i t h o u t t r a c e by w a r t i m e b o m b i n g d u r i n g WW II. Sir Tim Berners-Lee,

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K o n r a d Zuse, a c o n s t r u c t i o n of the World Wide Web engineer at t h e Henschel A i r c r a f t C o m p a n y in Berlin, developed t h e world's first p r o g r a m m a b l e c o m p u t e r in 1941.

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In 1843, m a t h e m a t i c i a n Ada Lovelace, d a u g h t e r of t h e poet L o r d Byron, published t h e first computer programs.

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In 1972, Bob M e t c a l f e c r e a t e d Ethernet, a t r a d e m a r k of t h e Xerox C o m p a n y .

In 1 9 6 4 , t h e A m e r i c a n

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S t a n d a r d Code f o r In December, 1968, Douglas C. Information Interchange) Engelbart, of t h e S t a n f o r d as a s t a n d a r d code f o r Research Institute, d e m o n s t r a t e d his s y s t e m of data transfer. keyboard, mouse and w i n d o w s at t h e Fall J o i n t C o m p u t e r Conference in San Francisco's Civic Center.

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The f i r s t t r a n s i s t o r i s e d c o m p u t e r was c o m p l e t e d , t h e TX-O, at MIT in early 1956. The f i r s t mechanical calculator capa ble of m u l t i p l i c a t i o n was invented by G o t t f r i e d Wilhelm Leibniz, w h o also c o - i n v e n t e d t h e calculus, in 1673. In 1801, J o s e p h - M a r i e J a c q u a r d invents a machine to a u t o m a t i cally c o n t r o l t h e p a t t e r n s in fabrics using punch cards. They were called J a c q u a r d Looms.

The QWERTY keyboard was actually designed with the intention of slowing down typists

Gay Lussac and T h e n a r d e x t r a c t e d i m p u r e a m o r p h o u s silicon in 1811. George Boole published his M a t h e m a t i c a l Analysis of Logic, invent ing Boolean algebra in 1854. This became t h e basis f o r c o m p u t e r design. In 1890, H e r m a n Hollerith c o n s t r u c t s a p u n c h - c a r d t a b u l a t i n g machine f o r use in t h e US Census. Radio Shack i n t r o d u c e d , in 1971, t h e f i r s t c o m p u t e r w i t h a k e y b o a r d and CRT display.

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The White House launches its website, w w w . w h i t e house.gov. Initial commerce sites are established and mas m a r k e t i n g campaigns are launched via e-mail, i n t r o d u c i n g the term 'spamming'.

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T E C H F A C T S

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Marc Andreessen and J i m Clark i n t r o d u c e the Navigator browser.

780.

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CompuServe, A m e r i c a Online, and Prodigy start p r o v i d i n g dial-up Internet access. Sun Microsys terns launches Java. s

778.

A r o u n d 4 5 million people are using t h e Internet, w i t h r o u g h l y 3 0 million of those in t h e US and Canada, 9 million in Europe, and 6 million in Asia Pacific. On J u l y 8, I n t e r n e t t r a f f i c records are b r o k e n as t h e NASA website broadcasts images t a k e n by Pathfinder on Mars.

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776.

" e - c o m m e r c e " becomes t h e new b u z z w o r d as Internet shopping rapidly spreads. College s t u d e n t Shawn Fanning invents Napster, a c o m p u t e r application t h a t allows users t o swap music o v e r the Internet. Deviant c o m p u t e r p r o g r a m m e r s begin spreading viruses w i t h i n c r e a s e d f r e q u e n c y . The I n t e r n e t b u b b l e bursts, as t h e f o u n t a i n of i n v e s t m e n t capital dries up and t h e Nasdaq plummets.

774.

Napster is dealt a fatal blow w h e n t h e 9 t h US Circuit C o u r t of Appeals in San Francisco rules t h a t t h e c o m p a n y is v i o l a t i n g c o p y r i g h t laws." A s t a g g e r i n g 5 8 . 5 percent of t h e US p o p u l a t i o n uses the Internet.

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It's e s t i m a t e d t h a t I n t e r n e t users illegally d o w n l o a d a b o u t 2.6 billion music files each m o n t h .

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'Finger' is an Internet t o o l f o r locating people on o t h e r sites. It gives access t o non-personal i n f o r m a t i o n . The t e r m ' p e t a b i t ' is used in discussing possible v o l u m e s of data t r a f f i c per second in a large n e t w o r k .

7697 RDF (Resource Definition F r a m e w o r k ) is a set of rules f o r c r e a t i n g d e s c r i p t i o n s of i n f o r m a t i o n available on t h e World Wide Web.

768.

SOAP (Simple Object Access P r o t o c o l ) is a p r o t o c o l for clientserver c o m m u n i c a t i o n t h a t sends and receives i n f o r m a t i o n 'on t o p o f HTTP.

7677 Wake-on-LAN (WOL) is a t e c h n o l o g y t h a t enables a c o m p u t e r

moth e r b o a r d t o s w i t c h itself on (and o f f ) based on signals a r r i v i n g at t h e c o m p u t e r ' s n e t w o r k card.

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A hacker w i t h benign i n t e n t i o n s is called a ' w h i t e hat'. A 'blue b o m b ' is a t e c h n i q u e f o r causing t h e Windows o p e r a t i n g s y s t e m of s o m e o n e you are c o m m u n i c a t i n g w i t h t o crash. OCSP (Online Certificate Status P r o t o c o l ) is one of t w o c o m m o n schemes f o r m a i n t a i n i n g t h e s e c u r i t y of a server. C e r t i f i c a t e Revocation List (CRL) is a m e t h o d of using a public key i n f r a s t r u c t u r e for m a i n t a i n i n g access t o servers. 1 0 0 1

T E C H F A C T S

Seagate 7 6 2 .

South Pacific Railroad laid d o w n t e l e g r a p h wires across t r a c k s t o help railway s t a t i o n s keep in t o u c h .

761.

The high-speed data highways of t h e Internet are called backbones. Sprint and AT&T o w n t h e major backbones in t h e US.

7 6 0 .

Silver is t h e most c o n d u c t i v e material, but copper is widely used in c o m m u n i c a t i o n s because it costs m u c h less 754. and is b e t t e r in t e r m s of s t r e n g t h and flexibility.

59.

58.

A t y p i c a l f i b r e - o p t i c cable fivet h o u s a n d t h s of an inch thick can c a r r y up t o 2.5 billion bits of data per second, or 3 2 , 0 0 0 s i m u l t a n e o u s t e l e p h o n e calls.

Most intercontinental Internet traffic passes through underwater fibreoptic cables. The first such layout was across the Atlantic, in 1988.

The idea of B l u e t o o t h t e c h n o l ogy was b o r n in 1994. The name B l u e t o o t h is derived f r o m a Danish Viking King, Harald B l a t a n d - t r a n s l a t e d as B l u e t o o t h in E n g l i s h w h o lived in t h e l a t t e r part of t h e 10th c e n t u r y . Blatand united and c o n t r o l l e d D e n m a r k and Norway, hence t h e inspiration f o r t h e name, as in ' u n i t i n g devices t h r o u g h B l u e t o o t h ' .

57.

Long b e f o r e t h e expression 'local area n e t w o r k ' (LAN) became part of t h e w o r l d ' s technical v o c a b u l a r y , IBM researchers were w o r k i n g on this t y p e of t e c h n o l o g y t h a t connects printers, w o r k s t a t i o n s and various servers in o f f i c e buildings, f a c t o r i e s and college campuses. IBM devised t o k e n - r i n g technology t o c o n t r o l LAN t r a f f i c m o r e e f f i c i e n t l y and reliably. A t o k e n ring controls access of individual c o m p u t e r s to the n e t w o r k , or ring. Since its i n t r o d u c t i o n in 1985, IBM's tokenring a r c h i t e c t u r e has become The construction an i n d u s t r y s t a n d a r d f o r LANs. of a fibre-optic cable

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V a n n e v a r Bush, later t h e vice-president and dean of t h e Electri cal Engineering d e p a r t m e n t , MIT, f i r s t proposed t h e basics of h y p e r t e x t in 1945. Tim Berners-Lee set d o w n t h e basics of t h e World Wide Web, HTML ( h y p e r t e x t m a r k u p language), HTTP(HyperText T r a n s f e r P r o t o c o l ) and URLs (Universal Resource L o c a t o r s ) in 1990. Chuq v o n Rospach of Apple C o m p u t e r , circa 1983, coined t h e wor 'netiquette'. NANA is t h e newsgroups news.admin.net-abuse.*, d e v o t e d to f i g h t i n g n e t w o r k abuse and spam. Each individual n e w s g r o u p is o f t e n r e f e r r e d to by adding a l e t t e r to NANA. For example, NANAU w o u l d refer t o news.admin.net-abuse.usenet. P r o g r a m s t h a t are small and un-useful, but d e m o n s t r a t e a point, are called 'Noddy' p r o g r a m s . Noddy p r o g r a m s are o f t e n w r i t t e n by people learning a new language or system. The a r c h e t y p a l noddy p r o g r a m is t h e " h e l l o w o r l d " p r o g r a m . In N o r t h A m e r i c a this m i g h t be called a 'Mickey Mouse' p r o g r a m . In the mid-1980s, engineers at Apple C o m p u t e r d e v e l o p e d a high-speed m e t h o d of t r a n s f e r r i n g data to and f r o m t h e h a r d drives in Macintosh desktops while s i m p l i f y i n g the i n t e r n a l cabling. They called it FireWire. A b o u t 6 0 million devices shipped w i t h FireWire ports in 2 0 0 2 , a c c o r d i n g t o research f i r m In-Stat/MDR. In 1994, Ericsson Mobile C o m m u n i c a t i o n s initiated a s t u d y t o i n v e s t i g a t e the feasibility of a low-power low-cost radio interface b e t w e e n mobile phones and t h e i r accessories. In 1998, a speciali n t e r e s t g r o u p was f o r m e d , c o d e n a m e d " B l u e t o o t h " by five companies: Ericsson, IBM, Intel, Nokia, and Toshiba.

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'Toothing' is random sending of sexually charged, flirtatious messages that users of Bluetooth enabled mobile devices broadcast to other Bluetooth enabled devices in the area. 1 0 0 1

T E C H F A C T S

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COMPUTER VIRUS TIMELINE

7 4 6 .

Apple Viruses 1, 2, and 3 are s o m e of t h e f i r s t viruses " i n t h e wild," or in t h e public d o m a i n . Found o n t h e Apple II oper a t i n g system, the viruses spread across Texas t h r o u g h p i r a t e d games.

n Fred Cohen defines a c o m p u t e r virus as "a p r o g r a m t h a t 00 o> can affect other c o m p u t e r p r o g r a m s by modifying t h e m in such a way as t o include a (possibly e v o l v e d ) copy of itself."

1986

745.

developed.

T w o daredevil Pakistani p r o g r a m m e r s , Basit and Amjad, replace the executable code in t h e boot sector of a f l o p p y disk w i t h t h e i r o w n code designed t o infect each 3 6 0 K B floppy accessed on any drive.

1987

I

00

Theories f o r self-replicating p r o g r a m s are first

The Lehigh virus, one of t h e f i r s t file viruses, infects

1

743.

c o m m a n d . c o m files. One of t h e most c o m m o n viruses, J e r u s a l e m , is unleashed. The virus a f f e c t s b o t h .exe and .com files. MacMag and t h e Scores virus cause t h e first major Macintosh outbreaks.

I B B

35Q

741.

735. 734.

1992 1990

736.

The Dark Avenger Mutation Engine (DAME) is created. It's a toolkit that turns ordinary viruses into polymorphic viruses. The Virus Creation Laboratory (VCL) is also made available.

1994

737.

As m a n y as 1,300 viruses are in existence.

The Good Times e - m a i l hoax t e a r s t h r o u g h t h e I n t e r n e t c o m m u n i t y . The hoax w a r n s of a malicious virus t h a t will erase an e n t i r e hard drive.

1995

738.

o> Tequila is t h e first widespread p o l y m o r p h i c virus f o u n d in t h e wild. P o l y m o r p h i c viruses were specially designed to make d e t e c t i o n d i f f i c u l t for virus scanners.

Word Concept becomes one of t h e most prevalent viruses in t h e mid-1990s. It is spread t h r o u g h M i c r o s o f t Word documents.

>o o* The Baza, Laroux and Staog viruses are the first to infect 0* W i n d o w s 9 5 files, Excel, and Linux respectively. 1998

739.

I

S t r a n g e B r e w was t h e f i r s t v i r u s t o i n f e c t J a v a files. The C h e r n o b y l virus spreads quickly via .exe files. The Melissa virus executes a m a c r o in a d o c u m e n t a t t a c h e d to an e-mail, which , in t u r n , f o r w a r d s t h e d o c u m e n t to 5 0 people in the user's Outlook address book. Bubble Boy is t h e f i r s t w o r m t h a t does not depend on t h e recipient o p e n i n g an a t t a c h m e n t for infection to set in. As soon as t h e user opens t h e e-mail, Bubble Boy strikes.

2000

733.

732.

2000

731.

•

36

S y m a n t e c launches N o r t o n A n t i v i r u s , one of t h e first a n t i - v i r u s p r o g r a m s d e v e l o p e d by a major c o m p a n y .

1999

740.

o

a>

The Love Bug, also k n o w n as t h e ILOVEYOU virus, sends itself o u t via Outlook. It also sends usernames and pass w o r d s t o t h e virus' a u t h o r . W97M.Resume.A, a new v a r i a t i o n of t h e Melissa virus, is d e t e r m i n e d to be in t h e wild. The ' r e s u m e ' v i r u s uses a Word m a c r o t o infect Outlook and spread itself.

1 0 0 1

T E C H F A C T S

Seagate

729.

China t i g h t e n s regulations against viruses, m a n d a t i n g a fine and i m p r i s o n m e n t for people w h o spread t h e m .

o o 3 •o c

The 'Stages' virus, disguised as a joke e-mail about the stages of life, spreads across t h e Internet.

•a

3' 3 m 5"

'Stages' is hidden in an a t t a c h m e n t w i t h a false " . t x t " extension, luring recipients i n t o opening it.

n> Bill Hewlett and Dave -i in Packard tossed a coin t o o 4 7 6 . The name IBM was started by an 3 decide w h e t h e r t h e CD ex-employee of National Cash Register. To one-up t h e m in all respects he called his c o m p a n y International Busines Machines. 4 7 5 .

L a r r y Ellison and Bob Oats were

company they founded

w o u l d be c a l l e d H e w l e t t P a c k a r d or P a c k a r d Hewlett.

w o r k i n g on a consulting p r o j e c t f o r t h e CIA. The code name f o r t h e project was Oracle. Later t h e y kept t h e same name f o r t h e company. 4 7 4 .

4 7 3 .

The t e r m 'Silicon Valley' was coined by j o u r n a l i s t Don Hoefler. Charles Wang, an i m m i g r a n t f r o m Shanghai, f o u n d e d C o m p u t e r Associates in 1976.

4 7 2 .

Sandra Kesinor and L e o n a r d Bosack s t a r t e d Cisco in 1984. The name was simply a s h o r t e n e d version of 'San Francisco'.

Adobe

Adobe is the second largest software company in the world

Scott McNealy f o u n d e d Sun M i c r o s y s t e m s in 1982.

In 2 0 0 1 , t h e G u i n n e s s B o o k of W o r l d R e c o r d s l i s t e d M S N H o t m a i l as t h e w o r l d ' s l a r g e s t f r e e e - m a i l p r o v i d e r , w i t h more than a 100 million subscribers.

63 •

fl> I/I

4 6 9 .

Adobe, or Adobe Systems Incorporated, the c o m p a n y behind Photoshop, A c r o b a t , and so on, was f o u n d e d in 1982.

4 6 8 .

Steven Gray f o u n d e d t h e A m a t e u r C o m p u t e r Society in 1966 and began publishing t h e ACS Newsletter.

467.

4 6 6 .

In 1952, Heinz Nixdorf f o u n d e d Nixdorf C o m p u t e r Corp. in Germany. It remained an inde pendent c o r p o r a t i o n until m e r g i n g w i t h Siemens in 1990.

4 6 5 .

In 1969, Xerox Corp. b o u g h t Scientific Data Systems f o r nearly $1

Jeff Hawkins invented the Palm Pilot.

billion—90 times t h e latter's earnings.

464.

463. 462. (/> 01 o 01

Q.

461.

Bill Gates' m a t h ' S A T score was a perfect 8 0 0 . The earliest r e f e r e n c e by Bill Gates made to t h e c o m p a n y name ' M i c r o s o f t ' was in a l e t t e r sent by Gates to c o - f o u n d e r Paul Allen on 2 9 t h November, 1975. In t h e letter, t h e name was spelt 'MicroSoft', but the hyphen was e v e n t u a l l y dropped. 3 C o m changed t h e name of t h e PalmPilot to simply 'Palm' because Pilot Pen Company t h r e a t e n e d a t r a d e m a r k lawsuit, c i t i n g possible brand confusion. So 3 C o m backed d o w n and changed t h e name t o 'Palm'. The irony is t h a t t h e Palm „ . ... ,, Pen Company makes styli usable on

Ifl 0) E (D Q. E o o 3 o fl> c

Bill Gates' first c o m p a n y was called Traf-O-Data, w h i c h made s o f t w a r e to analyse t r a f f i c , which enabled c o u n t y g o v e r n m e n t s t o get federal m o n e y for road projects. The c o m p a n y was d r i v e n o u t of business by a huge m o n o p o l y - t h e federal g o v e r n m e n t t h a t gave away similar s o f t w a r e for free.

t h r o w n a t him• a n d

remarked

it wasn t

he

{ust

tasty

Palm, Windows CE and o t h e r pen based devices. 4 6 0 .

•64

Brad Chase, Senior Executive at Microsoft in charge of Windows 9 5 , left t h e c o m p a n y in 1999 and created a board g a m e called Derivation, which is a b o u t English words and phrases and t h e i r origins and meanings.

H'l'MIHiMim

Seagate ICQ 4 5 9 .

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak earned money in college by selling "blue boxes" t o o t h e r students. A blue box a t t a c h e d t o a pay t e l e p h o n e and c r e a t e d t h e p r o p e r signals t o allow a user t o make free phone calls.

4 5 8 .

Bill Gates launched his business career in 1969 at age 14 by f o r m i n g a c o m p a n y named Lakeside P r o g r a m m i n g Group. Gates and his f r i e n d Paul Allen signed an agreem e n t w i t h C o m p u t e r Center C o r p o r a t i o n to r e p o r t bugs in PDP-10 s o f t w a r e , in e x c h a n g e f o r c o m p u t e r time.

•o QJ 3 5" in

0) 3 a. -a to

forefront

of PC innovatin,

ing with it's trademark

in

keep-

"Think

Different"

. One of t h e largest c o m p a n i e s in t h e world, AT&T is believed t o have e m p l o y e d o v e r a million people at one point.

d i g i t

65D

in

o

upercomputing 4 5 6 .

S e y m o u r Cray, c r e a t o r of high-end c o m p u t e r s , whose vehicle was t e s t e d against accidents by his o w n systems, could not save h i m s e l f - h e died in a car crash.

4 5 5 .

12 4 5 4 . s 453. e o» m E •

76

1 0 0 1

T E C H F A C T S

3 8 0 .

A soft m o d e m is s o f t w a r e t h a t p e r f o r m s m o d e m f u n c t i o n s using t h e c o m p u t e r ' s CPU r a t h e r t h a n in m o d e m h a r d w a r e .

3 7 9 .

A Yagi antenna, also k n o w n as a Yagi-Uda a r r a y or simply a Yagi, is a unidirectional a n t e n n a c o m m o n l y used in c o m m u n i c a t i o n s w h e n a f r e q u e n c y is above 10 MHz.

3 7 8 .

Bluesnarfing is t h e t h e f t of i n f o r m a t i o n f r o m a wireless device through a Bluetooth connection.

3 7 7 .

Bluejacking is the practice of sending messages b e t w e e n mobile users using a B l u e t o o t h wireless c o n n e c t i o n .

3 7 6 .

In c o m p u t e r j a r g o n , ' c o c o o n i n g ' is t h e act of hiding oneself f r o m t h e n o r m a l social e n v i r o n m e n t , w h i c h may be perceived as u n f r i e n d l y or unwelcome.

3 7 5 .

Cloaking is the masking of t h e sender's name and address in an email note or d i s t r i b u t i o n .

3 7 4 .

Hacktivism is the act of hacking, or breaking i n t o a c o m p u t e r system, f o r a politically or socially m o t i v a t e d purpose. .

l

a

w

The popular phrase T h e quick b r o w n fox j u m p s over t h e lazy dog' was t h e first message sent b e t w e e n the Kremlin and t h e White house, when testing t h e h o t l i n e telex. That phrase c o n t a i n s each of t h e letters of the alphabet at least once.

"

77 •

.

Hayes Corp. p r o d u c e d t h e first m o d e m t h a t used t h e c o m m o n A' c o m m a n d set.

371.

Britain i m p l e m e n t e d its ' 9 9 9 ' emergency telephone system in 1937 The first 9 9 9 call r e p o r t e d a burglary; t h e b u r g l a r was appre hended.

3 7 0 .

The '911' e m e r g e n c y t e l e p h o n e system was developed by AT&T ir t h e US as a public service.

3 6 9 .

T o u c h - t o n e service was f i r s t i n t r o d u c e d c o m m e r c i a l l y in t h e US ir 1963, but t o o k almost 10 years t o gain w i d e s p r e a d use.

3 6 8 .

On J u n e 3 , 1 8 8 0 , Bell t r a n s m i t t e d the first wireless t e l e p h o n e message on his n e w l y - i n v e n t e d ' p h o t o p h o n e ' . The device allowec for the transmission of sound on a beam of light.

3 6 7 .

Bell's p h o t o p h o n e is recognised as t h e p r e c u r s o r of m o d e r n fibre optics, w h i c h t o d a y t r a n s p o r t o v e r eight percent of the w o r l d ' s telecommunications.

366.

Modems In 1 9 7 0 , a t e a m o f r e s e a r c h e r s

the

were developed

NAAD's

because
c o

364.

|363. (O o

• 78

Nearly all of t h e m o r e t h a n 2 5 million kilometres of fibre-optic wir installed in t h e US t o d a y is based on t h e f i r s t " O p t i c a l Waveguid Fibers" designed by Corning Labs' Robert Maurer, Donald Keck, and Peter Schultz. Digital modems developed f r o m the need to t r a n s m i t data for Nort American Air Defence d u r i n g t h e 1950s. The first c o m m e r c i a l m o d e m was AT&T's Bell 103, m a n u f a c t u r e d i 1962. It had full-duplex transmission, frequency-shift keying or FSH

Seagate

-

,

and a speed of 3 0 0 bits per second or 3 0 0 bauds.

o

3

361.

The electric t e l e g r a p h was b o r n in 1830 when an A m e r i c a n named | J o s e p h Henry sent an e l e c t r o n i c c u r r e n t over one mile of w i r e to 2 . a c t i v a t e an e l e c t r o m a g n e t which caused a bell to strike.

3 6 0 .

T h o u g h Samuel Morse gave a public d e m o n s t r a t i o n of t h e Morse Code in 1838, t h e Congress f u n d e d $ 3 0 , 0 0 0 to c o n s t r u c t an exper imental 4 0 - m i l e t e l e g r a p h line f r o m Washi n g t o n to Baltimore, only five years later.

3 5 9 .

The electric telegraph was born 1930 in the United States

in

The message " W h a t h a t h God w r o u g h t ? " was t h e first official message sent in Morse Code on May 2 4 , 1 8 4 4 , f r o m t h e old Supreme Court c h a m b e r in Washi n g t o n to Baltimore. The basic concept of cellular phones began in 1947, when researchers looked at crude mobile car phones and

Seagate Tech Factoid Seagate must keep the "wear r a t e " of its drives very low to guarantee eliability. How low is very low? Over the typical five-year service life of a Seagate 10,000 rpm disk drive In a common server application, the sliding distance of the head over the disk is more than two million miles - t h a t ' s longer than four round-trip ourneys from the earth to the moon (each round trip is a mere 5 0 0 , 0 0 0 miles or so). Mow compare these numbers to car tyres, the best of which are made of material about 10 million times thicker than a disc's overcoat. Tyres are made of essentially the same material as the overcoat (carbon) but most mechanics would agree that tyres become not reliable after only about 100,000 miles. What does all this mean? If the tyres on a car were as robust as the disk overcoat on a Seagate drive, they should survive 1014 miles, t h a t ' s 1 0 0 , 0 0 0 , 0 0 0 , 0 0 0 , 0 0 0 , or 100 trillion miles. If you drove 10,000 miles a /ear with these wonder wheels on your car, they should last one billion /ears before having to be changed.

79d

realized t h a t by using small c e l l s - r a n g e of service a r e a - w i t h f r e q u e n c y reuse t h e y could increase the t r a f f i c capacity of mobile phones substantially. However at t h a t t i m e , t h e technology to do so was n o n e x i s t e n t . 3 5 8 .

357. 3 5 6 .

355.

Despite incredible d e m a n d , it took cellular phone service 37 years to become c o m m e r c i a l l y available in the United States. Consumer d e m a n d quickly o u t s t r i p p e d the 1982 s y s t e m standards. By 1987, cellular t e l e p h o n e subscribers exceeded one million and t h e airways w e r e c r o w d e d . In t h e 1970s, t h e very first cordless phones w e r e i n t r o d u c e d . In 1986, the Federal C o m m u n i c a t i o n s Commission or FCC granted the frequency range of 4 7 - 4 9 MHz for cordless phones. In 1990, this became 9 0 0 MHz. In 1994, digital cordless phones, and in 1995, digital spread s p e c t r u m , were respectively i n t r o d u c e d . In 1998, t h e FCC g r a n t e d the f r e q u e n c y range of 2.4 GHz f o r cordless phones. As of 2 0 0 3 , t h e u p w a r d range was 5 . 8 g i g a h e r t z .

354.

3 5 3 .

352. >

A Regional I n t e r n e t Registry (RIR) for the Asia Pacific region was originally p r o p o s e d at t h e APCCIRN (Asia-Pacific C o o r d i n a t i n g C o m m i t t e e for I n t e r n a t i o n a l Research N e t w o r k i n g ) m e e t i n g on 13 J a n u a r y 1993. It was t h e p r e c u r s o r of APNIC (Asia-Pacific N e t w o r k I n f o r m a t i o n Center). The 1st APNIC m e e t i n g was held at C h e r a r o n k o n University, Bangkok, Thailand, on J a n u a r y 16 and 17,1995. On April 3 0 , 1 9 9 6 , APNIC was registered in Seychelles as non-profit international organisation. The A m e r i c a n Registry for Internet N u m b e r s (ARIN), whose a u t h o r i t y it is t o m a n a g e t h e IP address space in use in N o r t h and South America, t h e Caribbean and sub-saharan Africa, began o p e r a t i o n s on December 2 2 , 1 9 9 7 .

c o -C Q.

—

U 10

224.

•

96

Research o r i e n t e d t o w a r d s A u t o m a t i c Speech Recognition and T r a n s c r i p t i o n technologies began in 1936 at AT&T's Bell Labs. At t h a t t i m e , most • • • • H I research was f u n d e d and The mouse became popular when p e r f o r m e d by Universities and Apple Macintosh was launched in t h e U.S. G o v e r n m e n t , p r i m a r i l y 1984 by t h e Military and DARPA. It wasn't until t h e early 1980s t h a t the t e c h n o l o g y reached the commercial market. The now u b i q u i t o u s direct m a n i p u l a t i o n i n t e r f a c e , w h e r e visible objects on t h e screen are d i r e c t l y m a n i p u l a t e d w i t h a pointing d e v i c e - l i k e w i t h a mouse or a light p e n - w a s f i r s t d e m o n s t r a t e d by Ivan S u t h e r l a n d in SketchPad,which was his 1963 MIT PhD thesis. SketchPad s u p p o r t e d t h e m a n i p u l a t i o n of objects using a light pen, including g r a b b i n g objects, m o v i n g t h e m , changing size, and using c o n s t r a i n t s . The s y s t e m was built at Lincoln Labs w i t h s u p p o r t f r o m the Air Force and NSF. The first pen-based input device, the RAND tablet, was f u n d e d by ARPA. Later, A m i t Teitelman, in 1964, developed t h e first trainable g e s t u r e recogniser. A v e r y early d e m o n s t r a t i o n of g e s t u r e

The QWERTY 129 years

keyboard

layout

is

old 1 0 0 1

T E C H F A C T S

Seagate (C r e c o g n i t i o n was T o m Ellis' GRAIL system on t h e RAND tablet. 2 2 3 .

«

(Jn

The first 3-D s y s t e m was p r o b a b l y T i m o t h y J o h n s o n ' s 3-D CAD

. g

system, in 1963. — 2 2 2 .

221.

3 TS

The 'Lincoln Wand' by L a r r y Roberts was an ultrasonic 3D location sensing system, developed at Lincoln Labs in 1966. An early use was f o r m o l e c u l a r modelling. David Canfield S m i t h coined t h e t e r m ' i c o n ' i n his 1975 S t a n f o r d

o

3

PhD thesis on Pygmalion, f u n d e d by ARPA and NIMH. S m i t h later

a

popularised icons, as one of t h e chief designers of t h e Xerox

a

Star.

5 01

o ' sign in addresses. ICO was t h e first instant messaging p r o g r a m , and t h a t ' s notable because it's still running, a l t h o u g h it's been b o u g h t by AOL.

4 4 .

The JPEG s u b - c o m m i t t e e was set up by t h e ISO in t h e late 1980s t o r e c o m m e n d a file f o r m a t for t h e s t o r a g e of high quality still images. The c o m m i t t e e delivered, instead, an image c o m p r e s s i o n standard. JPEG stands f o r J o i n t P h o t o g r a p h i c Experts Group.

4 3 .

Claude Shannon is arguably t h e f a t h e r of I n f o r m a t i o n Technology. In 1948, he published " A M a t h e m a t i c a l T h e o r y of C o m m u n i c a t i o n " in t h e Bell System Technical J o u r n a l . This paper f o u n d e d t h e subject of i n f o r m a t i o n t h e o r y .

4 2 .

The f i r s t high-level p r o g r a m m i n g language was Fortran. It was developed in 1956 by an IBM t e a m headed by J o h n Backus. F o r t r a n became c o m m e r c i a l l y available in 1957.

Claude

Shannon

The f i r s t o b j e c t - o r i e n t e d language was Simula, a l t h o u g h it was not c o m p l e t e l y o b j e c t - o r i e n t e d . It was d e v e l o p e d by Kristen Nygaard and Ole-Johan Dahl in t h e mid 1960s.

40. (/) 3 O