- The first electronic
digital computer weighed 30 tons.
- The images on a
computer screen are made up of more than 5,000 pixels, or dots, per square
inch.
- The average computer chip
plant produces 4 million gallons of wastewater and thousands of gallons of
corrosive hazardous materials a day, such as hydrochloric and sulfuric
acid.
- Texas Instruments
developed the first popular computer-based toy. It was called Speak and
Spell.
- Paprophobia is the fear
of paper
- The sci-fi flick Gog
(1954), in which a nuclear "brain" takes over a secret
laboratory, was the first film to have a computer appear as a main
character in a movie.
- Computers and hard
drives aren't as fragile as they were a few years ago, but you're asking
for trouble if you move your PC around while it is running. While your
computer is running, its hard disk is very vulnerable. A tiny magnet
literally floats less than a hair's breadth above a platter where data is
stored. A minor bump can send the magnet skittering into the disk's
surface. The damage can't be repaired. Not only will you need a new hard
disk, but you'll likely lose the information the disk held.
- Don't use the on/off
switch on your personal computer any more than necessary. There's a surge
of electricity every time the switch is turned on. For fragile computer
chips, it's much like starting the day by jumping into an icy pool. To
prolong the life of your home computer, turn it on when you arrive home
from work and turn it off again when you go to bed at night.
- The first true
calculator, the abacus, originated in China during the sixth century B.C.
Its stone-like beads, shifted along vertical strings, enabled the Chinese
to perform basic arithmetical operations with speed and accuracy, the test
of a true computer. About 200 years after it was used by the Chinese, the
abacus caught on in several Mediterranean civilizations.
- ENIAC, the first
electronic computer, appeared 50 years ago. The original ENIAC was about
80 feet long, weighed 30 tons, had 17,000 tubes. By comparison, a desktop
computer today can store a million times more information than an ENIAC,
and is 50,000 times faster.
- In Echallens,
Switzerland in 1998, a 105-year-old retired Swiss teacher was ordered to
attend elementary school, thanks to a computer that cut a century off his
age. The mix-up happened because a list of local residents had only the
last two digits of his birth date. So the man, along with sixty-five
5-year-olds in the town, received a letter ordering him to start school.
The matter was taken care of, and the computer system was changed.
- Peter de Jager was the
world's foremost expert on the Y2K computer problem that many believed
would cause computer systems to collapse because their software mistook
the double zeroes of 2000 to mean 1900. He wrote the "Doomsday
2000" article that initially publicized the problem, then spent the
1990s helping companies all over the world fix their computers. De Jager's
Web site, www.year2000.com, was the world's clearing house for Y2K
bug-related information. When at midnight, January 1, 2000, planes did not
fall from the sky, de Jager was angrily accused of setting the hysterical
stage for billions of dollars to be wasted.
- Although most Americans
were not concerned about the impact Y2K would have on them personally at
midnight on January 1, 2000, they showed greater concern about the effect
it could have on others. According to a Gallup poll, 48 percent thought
this computer problem would cause major problems around the world.
- Because the eyes work
harder when viewing objects up close, particularly on a computer monitor,
it is the proximity of the VDT screen to the eyes that causes eyestrain,
not "radiation" emitted from the screen. According to the
American Academy of Ophthalmology, using a computer or video display
terminal will not harm your eyes.
- Before he pursued a
career in the music industry, Elvis Costello worked as a computer operator
at an Elizabeth Arden cosmetics factory.
- More than 300 technical
staffers, many with their families, gathered around computers at Microsoft
Corp.'s headquarters on New Year's Eve 1999, marking the new millennium by
waiting for something to go wrong. As it turned out, they had nothing to
do, as the transition from one century to the next was uneventful.
- Our hands are
recognized by medical professionals as a major source for spreading flu
and cold germs. Flu and cold germs can be spread on computer mice and
keyboards, chewed pencils, telephones, pens, salad-bar tongs, light
switches, door knobs, taxi door handles, and countless other common
objects. People can't avoid touching things. To minimize infection,
concentrate on keeping hands away from the mouth, nose, and eyes unless
the hands are first washed with antibacterial soap, says the Soap and
Detergent Association of New York.
- You blink every 2 to 10
seconds. As you focus on each word in this sentence, your eyes swing back
and forth 100 times a second; every second, the retina performs 10 billion
computer-like calculations.
- In 1843, mathematician
Ada Byron published the first computer programs. She based them on
Jacquard's punch-card idea. Her programs were for the first
general-purpose mechanical digital computer that had just been invented by
Charles Babbage.
- In 1962, University of
Utah student Nolan Bushnell received his first exposure to video games,
playing Spacewar in the University's computer lab. Bushnell spent the next
7 years trying to reproduce Spacewar on a smaller, less expensive
computer. When it was finally completed in 1971, Bushnell's Spacewar
variation (dubbed "Computer Space"), bombed. People found it too
complicated. Bushnell gave up on it, quit his job at Ampex, and founded
Atari in 1972. Bushnell originally wanted to name the company Syzygy, but
the name was already taken by a roofing company. That same year, Magnavox
quietly released the Odyssey, the first home video game system. It had a
game similar to Pong, and Magnavox later sued Atari (successfully) for
"copying" it.
- Spacewar is generally
considered to be the first video game. Programmed in 1962 by MIT student
Steve Russell, Spacewar was a simple game with ASCII graphics where two
players would blast lasers at each other. At the time, the game only ran
on massive, million-dollar mainframes the size of a small house. Spacewar
was circulated to other computer labs across the country, but only nerdy
college students with access to mainframes could play it.
- In May 2000, China
toughened its regulations against computer viruses, mandating fines and up
to five years imprisonment for people who spread the bugs.
- There are three sets of
letters on the standard typewriter and computer keyboards which are in
alphabetical order, reading left to right. They are f-g-h, j-k-l, and o-p.
- Japanese children start
out by memorizing 80 brush-stroke characters by second grade, going all
the way to 2,000 characters to allow them to read a newspaper in high
school. Still, only 16.3 percent of test takers pass a national kanji
(writing Chinese characters) exam that requires mastering about 2,000
characters. These days, more Japanese children are choosing computers over
calligraphy. Even teachers are losing the knack of writing Japanese
characters.
- Internet access in the
country of Burma is restricted by anti-modem laws. Illegal possession of a
modem can lead to a prison term. Public typists work at typewriters
charging about 14 cents per page. On a good day, a public typist earns
about $3.50.
- A NUKE InterNETWORK
poll found that 52 percent of Internet users have cut back on watching TV
in order to spend more time online; 12 percent have cut back on seeing
friends. » Although home access to the Internet has grown, the percentage
of those users who are “active” has been flat at 60 percent. Web companies
are concerned that they are missing the mark in providing compelling
content.
- As of September 2000,
San Francisco was Number 1 in the United States as the city with the
highest percentage of homes with Internet access, at 65.6 percent. Despite
the outcry from some anti-gambling lawmakers over the explosion of
gambling on the Internet, fewer than one percent of American adults had
used the Internet for gambling within the year of 1999.
- In 2000, Internet use
since 1998 has tripled in Hong Kong. According to the South China Morning
Post, the time spent online averaged out to almost seven minutes for every
Hong Kong resident.
- In web site addresses
on the Internet, "http" stands for "hypertext transfer
protocol."
- Rob Glaser’s new
company, Progressive Networks, launched the RealAudio system on April 10,
1995, enabling anyone with point-and-click access to the Internet to have
access to audio. Users needed a multimedia PC, a fast-for-the-time (14.4k)
modem, and a direct connection to the 'Net.
- The "Dilbert
Zone" web site was the first syndicated comic strip site available on
the Internet, and was one of the first web sites to realize a profit. The
site was managed by United Media.
- The average wired adult
will spend 5.3 percent of the rest of his or her life online, according to
research firm Cyber Dialogue, based on an extensive survey of Internet
users. The study's results showed that the average adult online today will
spend a total of 23.5 months of his or her life online. That’s 17,500 hours.
- There are hefty
pricetags on some Internet domain names. The highest-selling domain name
to date, business.com, went for $7.5 million in 1999. The buyer was
eCompanies.
- Computer crime has
quadrupled over the past three years, according to a 2000 survey by the
FBI and San Francisco's Computer Security Institute. Seventy-five percent
of the hacking victims — most often corporations and government agencies —
have found that it costs an average of $1 million per intrusion to
investigate, repair, and secure their systems once they've been hacked.
- The name of the
Internet's most popular directory, is an acronym. According to the
company, the name "Yahoo" stands for "Yet Another
Hierarchical Officious Oracle." Do you Yahoo?
- Duelling is legal in
Paraguay as long as both parties are registered blood donors.
- The metal part at the
end of a pencil is twenty percent sulfur.
- Computer monitors need
to stay cool. Unfortunately, they make handy resting places for various
items. But if papers, manuals, and other miscellany are piled on top of
the monitor, the cooling vents are blocked. Internal heat shortens the
life of monitors.
- Computer viruses are
bits of software code that either overwrite or attach themselves to
programs and replicate themselves. While some are merely annoying, taking
up valuable disk space, others can wipe out an entire hard drive. If the
Michelangelo virus is on your computer, it activates on March 6, the
artist's birthday. Viruses were first discovered in the late 1980s, and
since that time, IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Center has collected more
than 10,000. It is estimated that six to nine new viruses are found daily.
About 1,200 computer viruses are in circulation.
- The computer
programming language BASIC is an acronym of "Beginner’s All-purpose
Symbolic Instruction Code."
- The name of all the
continents end in the same letter they start with
- With its duplex suites
starting at $1,095 and reaching $18,000 per night, the Burj al-Arab, or
tower of the Arabs, the world's tallest hotel, opened on December 1, 1999.
Saudi Defense Minister Prince Sultan was the suite's first guest, staying
there the month before the hotel's official opening. As a guest of the
premier hotel, you can take a helicopter to the 28th-floor helipad or
relax in one of the hotel's eight Rolls Royce Silver Seraphs, which drops
you off on the shore across from the hotel. All the suites boast laptop
computers, faxes, and 42-inch television screens. The new Emirates hotel
is taller than Paris’ Eiffel Tower and just 196 feet shorter than the
Empire State Building in New York City.
- The dial tone of a
normal telephone is in the key of "F".
- The original IBM
punchcard is the same size as a Civil War era $ bill.
- Winston Churchill was
born in the ladies' room.
- India has 50 million
monkeys.
- Laptop computers get
bumped around too much, which makes them around 30 percent more likely to
fail than a computer that stays in one place.
- Did you submit your
code to codekit today
- Croatia was the first
country to recognize the United States in 1776.
- Months that begins with
a Sunday will always have a "Friday the 13th."
- If you come from
Manchester, you are a Mancunian.
- The white part of your
fingernail is called the lunula.
- In the last 4000 years,
no new animals have been domesticated.
- Iowa has more
independent telephone companies than any other state.
- The only USA city that
is below sea level is New Orleans and still sinking 2 inches every year.
- The silhouette on the
NBA logo is Jerry West.
- In 1995, each American
used an annual average of 731 pounds of paper, more than double the amount
used in the 1980s. Contrary to predictions that computers would displace
paper, consumption is growing.
- Alcoholics are twice as
likely to confess a drinking problem to a computer than to a doctor, say
researchers in Wisconsin.
- Since 1896, the
beginning of the modern Olympics, only Greece and Australia have
participated in every Games.