1. What does IBM stand for?
International Business Machines Corporation, the largest computer company in the world, which started in 1911 as a producer of punch card tabulating machines.
2. Name the device that is the "brain" of a computer system: CD-ROM, CPU, WWW, or DNA?
The CPU, or Central Processing Unit, is the brain of the computer and its most important chip. The CPU performs the system's calculating and processing.
3. How many bits is a byte (a unit of storage measurement in computers)?
There are 8 bits in a byte.
4. Who invented the computer mouse?
The computer mouse was invented by Douglas Engelbart of Stanford Research Institute in 1963: "It was nicknamed the mouse because the tail came out the end."
5. What does HTML stand for?
HTML stands for "Hyper Text Mark-up Language" (which is used to create documents on the World Wide Web).
6. What do you call a computer virus that spreads itself automatically through e-mail: a snake, an eel, a worm, or a leech?
A worm.
7. What is the name of the 1997 breakthrough album by the alternative rock band Radiohead?
OK Computer
8. In "2001: A Space Odyssey" (both the novel written by Arthur C. Clarke and the film directed by Stanley Kubrick), what was the name of the computer aboard the spaceship? [Bonus question: what was the computer originally to be called?]
The HAL-9000, or "HAL" for short (standing for Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer). The computer originally was named Athena and was intended to have a female voice.
9. What is the best-selling apple in the northeastern United States and in Canada?
The McIntosh apple, named after John McIntosh (a farmer in Dundela, Ontario, Canada), was introduced in the 1800s. Jef Raskin of Apple Computers, who is often credited with coining the term "Apple Macintosh", spelled it wrong or purposefully (possibly to avoid a legal dispute with an audio manufacturer called McIntosh).
10. What does "Spam" stand for?
"SPAM" stands for "SPiced hAM", a registered trademark of Hormel Foods Corporation (from 1937). Spamming is the abuse of electronic messaging systems to send unsolicited, bulk messages, the most widely recognized form of which is e-mail spam. Although debatable, use of the term "spam" was adopted from a skit by the comedy troupe, Monty Python, in which the SPAM meat product was praised in a chorus of "spam, spam, spam, …" in a heightening crescendo, drowning out other conversation---analogous to the fact that unsolicited e-mail "spam" drowns out normal Internet discourse.
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