1001 Amazing Tech Facts

121 Pages·1997·5.44 MB·English

by  Seagate

Seagate
presents
TRIVIA THAT GIVES YOU THE EDGE

Seagate
presents
TRIVIA THAT GIVES YOU THE EDGE
3 •
The following writers at Digit
compiled the 1001 tech facts:
Aparna Krishnakumar
Garfield D'Souza
Meera Vankipuram
Ram Mohan Rao
Robert Sovereign-Smith
Srinivasan Ramakrishnan
Suprotip Ghosh
Upendra Singhai
Copy Editors
Ram Mohan Rao
Syed Nadim Siraj
Design and Layout
Ashwin Boricha
Shivshankar Pillai
Sivalal S
Photographs
Mexy Xavier
© 2004 Jasubhai Digital Media, Mumbai
1 0 01 T E C H F A C TS
• 4
CONTENTS
Topic Page No.
The History of Computing 9
The Internet 19
Networking 32
Various Timelines 35
Processors and Components 42
Storage 52
Operating Systems 55
Companies and Personalities 60
Supercomputer 66
Displays 70
Imaging 72
Telephony 77
Cellphones 82
Entertainment 85
Games 91
Human Interface Devices 95
Miscellaneous Tech Facts 98
mwmtm ^

INTRODUCTION
In 1981, in an apparent moment of epiphany, William Henry
Gates III told a gathering that in the future 640 KB of RAM
ought to be enough for anybody.
Today, Gates, one of the richest men in the universe, makes
most of his money selling software so heavy even a Sumo
wrestler would blush. Ergo, even the most successful, or
foresighted, people in the world are not infallible.
Twenty-three years later, we don't really know whether
Gates is still haunted by that statement. What we know for
sure is that statements like these become more than just that,
and people exchange notes with malicious glee: "Did you
know that Bill Gates was stupid enough to say this. I mean,
how did he become the richest man on earth?"
This special compilation of 1001 amazing technology facts
is not filled with malice, but with stuff that would make you
smile, raise your eyebrows, or, god forbid, make you 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 technological progress
has been fast enough to send every one of us into a tizzy, we
tend to lose sight of the pioneers, of the technologies that
changed our lives. This book is meant to bring us closer to
reality, closer to our technology history, closer to the people
who made it happen.
We learn from history, and from those lessons alone alone
can we shape our future. So sit back, put your feet on the table,
let your hair down, and let time pass you by. And yes, tell us if
you didn't get that smile on your face.
H HB 70

Seagate
1 0 01 . Alan Turing is considered the father of Computer Science, in 1937,
he published the paper "On Computable Numbers, with an Appli
cation to the Entsheidungsproblem".
9 9 9. Beginning in 1934, Konrad Zuse, a German engineer, built a series
of computers, the Z1 through Z4, utilising binary arithmetic.
9987 Claude Shannon is usually called the father of Information Tech
nology. In 1948, he published "A Mathematical Theory of Commu
nication" in the Bell System Technical Journal.
. The first high-level programming language was Fortran. It was
developed in 1956 by an IBM team headed by John Backus. Fortran
became commercially available in 1957.
The first object-oriented language was Simula. It was developed by
Kristen Nygaard and Ole-Johan Dahl in the mid 1960s.
3 9 5. 1981 was the year that PCs began, when IBM debuted the IBM PC.
Microsoft shipped it with BASIC. The operating system, too, was
developed by Microsoft.
aauiMny
90
9 9 4. The first 'computer', the steam-driven calculating machine, was
built in 1823 by Charles Babbage.
9 9 3. Christopher Pile was sentenced to 18 months for releasing a
toolkit that would boost the impact of existing viruses by randomi-
sing their codes.
992. In 1951, Jay Forrester and
991.
Robert Everett, graduate
students at MIT, constructed
It is much debated
the ' Whirlwind,' a 'real-time
whether any single person
computer,' working at twice the
speed of the ENIAC. can be said to have
invented the first
990. In 1969, computer firm Honey computer. Examples of
well released the H316 "Kitchen candidates are Charles
Computer", the first home Babbage and Konrad Zuse.
computer, priced at
$10,600.
9 8 9. In 1976, the term "personal computer" first appeared in print, in the
May issue of Byte Magazine.
9 8 8. In 1981, while working
on the original version
of Microsoft's Disk
Operating System
(DOS), Bill Gates made
a remarkable predic-
tion: "640 K (of RAM)
should be enough for
anyone."
9 8 7. The term 'bug' was
probably coined after
Admiral Grace Hopper
The Incredible Feat of a Seagate Read/Write Head it's
like a 747 going 600 Mph 3 Feet off the ground count
ing blades of grass as it flies by