Learn an interesting fact to share with friends and increase your Geek Cred!
In 1976, NASA unveiled the first Space Shuttle, the Enterprise. The shuttle was originally called Constitution. A write-in campaign by “Star Trek” enthusiasts urged President Gerald Ford to go with Enterprise and, as a result, the name was changed. The Enterprise was a test vehicle […]
Geek Facts for September 17th – The Space Shuttle and a Couple of Handheld Computers Read More »
In 2011, NASA scientists announced the discovery of a circumbinary planet, a planet the orbits two stars. Known as Kepler-16b, it is located 200 light-years from Earth. Previous research had hinted at the existence of circumbinary planets. Learn more at http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2011/15sep_doublesuns/.
In 1968, the Soviet Zond 5 spaceship, the first spacecraft to fly around the Moon and re-enter Earth’s atmosphere, was launched. In addition to a biological payload of turtles, wine flies, meal worms, plants, seeds, and bacteria, in the pilot’s seat was a 68.9 inches
In 1939, the Vought-Sikorsky VS-300 became the first practical helicopter to ever successfully lift off. Designer Igor Sikorsky piloted the vehicle as it lifted off the ground to an altitude of roughly three feet for a duration of about ten seconds. Learn more at http://www.aviastar.org/helicopters_eng/sik_vs-300.php.
In 1941, Dr. Henry Edward “Ed” Roberts was born. Considered by many to be the ‘father of the PC’, he may be more accurately described as the ‘father of the PC industry.’ His Altair 8800 appeared on the cover of Popular Electronics in January 1975
Geek Facts for September 13th – A New Industry and Two New Computers Read More »
In 1960, IBM announced the IBM 1410 data processing system. The IBM 1410 contained large volume storage facilities and fast input/output units. According to IBM’s website, initial orders for the 1410 exceeded 3,500, making it the most widely-accepted data processing machine ever produced. Learn more
In 1877, English mathematician and astronomer James Jeans was born. One of Jeans’ major discoveries, named Jeans length, is a critical radius of an interstellar cloud in space. It is a function of the temperature and density of the cloud as well as the mass
In 1990 , the first Internet search engine, Archie, was launched. Archie was an index of FTP archives created by by Alan Emtage, Bill Heelan, and Mike Parker at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. Archie got its name from “archives”. It was shortened to Archie to
Geek Facts for September 10th – Archie and Gopher Read More »
In 1941, Dennis Ritchie, the father of C and co-creator of UNIX, was born. Windows was once written in C and UNIX underpins both Mac OS X and iOS. While Dennis Ritchie’s contributions are largely invisible to consumers, his contributions are critical to the digital
Geek Facts for September 9th – A Digital Revolution Titan and CoCo2 Read More »
In 1930, 3M began marketing Scotch transparent tape. Richard Drew invented Scotch® Cellulose Tape, later renamed Cellophane Tape. The tape helped people “make do” during the Great Depression since they could make simple repairs to household items. Learn more about tape at http://www.scotchbrand.com/wps/portal/3M/en_US/ScotchBrand/Scotch/Resources/History/Timeline/.
In 1912, David Packard, co-founder of Hewlett-Packard, was born. With Bill Hewlett, David Packard was co-founder of Hewlett-Packard Company. HP’s first product was a resistance-capacitance audio oscillator based on a design developed by Hewlett when he was in graduate school. Packard left the company in
In 2001, Mark Cuban and Phillip Garvin launched HDNet, the first High Definition TV signals. Available through cable and satellite television, HDNet provided exclusive HD coverage of the US invasion of Afghanistan. “Dan Rather Reports” on HDNet was awarded the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award
In 1932, Robert Dennard, the inventor of Dynamic Random Access Memory, was born. in the mid-1960s, Random Access Memory (RAM) required an elaborate system of wires and magnets that was bulky and power hungry. Dennard’s revolutionary achievement was to reduce RAM to a memory cell
In 1882, Edison Illuminating Company’s first electric power station began operating. At 3 p.m. on that day, the Pearl Street electric power station successfully turned on the lights in a one square mile area of New York City. It was now possible for homes and
