A.

a. Which three PC's were released in 1977?

*Star Wars (Death Star Briefing)
Set in a Galaxy far, far away, Star Wars combined old-fashioned science fiction storytelling with cutting-edge special
effects provided by Industrial Light & Magic. One effect, the Death Star briefing, featured a wire-frame version of the
space station, one of the first uses of wire-frame animation in a major motion picture.
*Apple II
Sold complete with a main logic board, switching power supply, keyboard, case, manual, game paddles, and cassette
tape containing the game Breakout, the Apple-II finds popularity far beyond the hobbyist community which made up
Apple’s user community until then. When connected to a color television set, the Apple II produced brilliant color
graphics for the time.
*Atari
Atari releases its Video Computer System (VCS) later renamed the Atari 2600. The VCS was the first widely successful
video game system, selling more than twenty million units throughout the 1980s. The VCS used the 8-bit MOS 6507
microprocessor and was designed to be connected to a home television set. When the last of Atari’s 8-bit game consoles
were made in 1990, more than 900 game titles had been released.
* C3PO and R2D2 in Star Wars
C3PO and R2D2 play a critical role in 1977’s blockbuster hit movie Star Wars. Throughout the movie C3PO served as an
ambassador-like robot that is knowledgeable of customs, traditions and over 6,000,000 languages. C3PO's companion
robot, R2D2, served as a mechanic, computer interface specialist and co-pilot for the film’s main protagonist Luke
Skywalker.
*Commodore 1530 Datasette
The built-in Commodore 1530 Datasette (data+cassette) is the primary storage device for the newly released
Commodore PET. The device converted digital information from the computer into analog sound signals which were
stored on compact cassettes. The method was cost-effective and reliable, but also very slow.
*ROM chips
The Atari Video Computer System (VCS) video game console is introduced. It was one of the first successful consoles that
used interchangeable cartridges with factory programmed ROM chips to store the software. At first, designers planned
to use an internal ROM chip that contained several pre-programmed games. This method was used in many predecessor
consoles, but Atari’s choice on using cartridges in part led the VCS to becoming one of the most popular video gaming
systems of all time.
*Tandy Radio Shack
Performing far better than the company projections of 3,000 units for the first year, in the first month after its release
Tandy Radio Shack´s first desktop computer
*The Commodore PET (Personal Electronic Transactor)
The first of several personal computers released in 1977, the PET comes fully assembled with either 4 or 8 KB of
memory, a built-in cassette tape drive, and a membrane keyboard. The PET was popular with schools and for use as a
home computer. It used a MOS Technologies 6502 microprocessor running at 1 MHz. After the success of the PET,
Commodore remained a major player in the personal computer market into the 1990s.

b. What was the first non-kit PC developed in 1973?

*Micral
The Micral was the earliest commercial, non-kit personal computer based on a micro-processor, the Intel 8008. Thi
Truong developed the computer and Philippe Kahn the software. Truong, founder and president of the French company
R2E, created the Micral as a replacement for minicomputers in situations that didn´t require high performance. Selling
for $1,750, the Micral never penetrated the U.S. market. In 1979, Truong sold Micral to Bull.

c. What important data storage medium was released in 1983?

* Able to hold 550 megabytes of prerecorded data, CD-ROMs grew out of music Compact Disks (CDs). The first general-
interest CD-ROM product released after Philips and Sony announced the CD-ROM in 1984 was "Grolier´s Electronic
Encyclopedia," which came out in 1985. The 9 million words in the encyclopedia only took up 12 percent of the available
space. The same year, computer and electronics companies worked together to set a standard for the disks so any
computer would be able to access the information.

d. What does ASCII stand for, and in what year did come out?
* ASCII stands for American Standard Code for Information Interchange. Work on the code started in 1960 and the first
edition was published in 1963.

e. What was the name of the first fully transistorized computer developed in 1955?
* TRADIC stands for TRAnisitor DIgital Computer, and as the name suggests this was the first machine to use all
transistors and diodes and no vacuum tubes. It was built by Bell Labs for the U.S. Air Force, which was interested in the
lightweight nature of such a computer for airborne use. The machine consisted of 700 point-contact transistors and
10,000 germanium diodes. During two years of continuous operation only 17 of these devices failed, a vastly lower
failure rate than Vacuum tube machines of the time.

B.
a. BITNET, one of the predecessors of the internet qas launched in 1981, What does BITNET stand for?
* BITNET stands for “Because It’s Time NETwork”.

b. What worm struck the internet in 2001?

* Code Red worm and Sircam virus infiltrates thousands of web servers and email accounts.Causing a spike in Internet
bandwidth usage and security breaches

c. What food could you order through the internet in 1994?

* Pizza from the Hut online!

d. What famous person sent an email in 1976?

* Elizabeth II, Queen of the United Kingdom sends out an email on 26 March from the Royal Signals and Radar
Establishment (RSRE) in Malvern.

e. What country offered Internet, voting for local elections in 2005?

* Estonia offered Internet Voting nationally for local elections.

f. In 2008 what kind of network did NASA test?

* DTN – Disruption-Tolerant Networking “deep space communications”