Learn an interesting fact to share with friends and increase your Geek Cred!
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 […]
In 1991 , Integral Peripherals introduced the first 1.8-inch hard disk drive. The drive was about the size of a deck of cards and was available in capacities of 20 MB and 40 MB. It was later used for PC-card disk drives. Learn more about disk
In 1969 , at UCLA Network Measurement Center, the first Interface Message Processor (IMP) was connected to its SDS Sigma-7 mainframe. This established the first node of what became the ARPANET, the first wide-area packet switching network. Acoustics consulting firm Bolt, Beranek and Newman (BBN) designed
In 1977, the first TRS-80 Model I computer was sold. Much to Tandy’s surprise, the TRS-80 sold 10,000 units in the first month alone. The TRS-80 Model 1 had no numeric keypad and Level I BASIC with 4K RAM. Learn more at http://oldcomputers.net/trs80i.html. In 1979 ,
Geek Facts for September 1st – TRS-80 and a Flyby of Saturn Read More »
In 1897 , Thomas Edison received a patent for the Kinetoscope, a device for producing moving pictures. The kinetoscope could only be viewed by one person at a time. It was soon replaced by screen projectors, which showed the movie to a whole room of people
In 1983, NASA Astronaut Guion S. Bluford Jr. became the first African American to go into space. Bluford’s first mission was as a Mission Specialist on STS-8. This was the first mission with a night launch and night landing. Bluford flew on four Shuttle missions
Geek Facts for August 30th – The 1st African American in Space and 2 Office Versions Read More »
In 1831, English chemist Michael Faraday discovered electromagnetic induction using his induction ring. Faraday succeeded in the “induction” or generation of electricity in a wire by means of the electromagnetic effect of a current in another wire. The induction ring was the first electric transformer.
In 1789, Sir William Herschel discovered Saturn’s moon, Enceladus. Enceladus is the eighth of Saturn’s moons and is its sixth largest. It was named after a Greek Titan who rebelled against the gods and who was later defeated in battle by Aphrodite and buried under
In 1993, Compaq announced its Presario line of personal computers. Starting at $1,499, the Pentium 4 2 GHz basic system configuration included a 20 GB 7200 RPM hard drive, 128 MB of PC800 RAMBUS memory, 48x CD-ROM drive and a 17″ CV735 monitor. Learn more
In 1902, Conrad Hubert received a patent for the first flashlight with an on/off switch in a cylindrical case. With the development of smaller, more powerful “D” cell batteries, it became practical to carry a hand-held battery-powered torch or “flash light”, so called because the
In 1991, Linus Torvalds released his first version of the Linux operating system kernel. As of 2006, approximately two percent of the Linux kernel was written by Torvalds. As thousands have contributed to the Linux kernel, he still remains one of its largest contributors. Learn
In 1995, Windows 95 debuted. Windows 95 integrated Microsoft’s MS-DOS and Windows products. It featured significant improvements over its predecessor, Windows 3.1 in regards to its graphical user interface (GUI) and in its relatively simplified “plug-n-play” features. Learn more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_95. In 2006, Pluto was
Geek Facts for August 24th – Windows 95 and Pluto’s Demotion Read More »
In 2008, Edson Smith of the UCLA Mathematics Department announced the discovery of the 45th Mersenne prime number. Mersenne Prime numbers all take the form of (2 to the power of P) – 1, where P is a known prime number. The Mersenne Prime number
Geek Facts for August 23rd – A Big Prime Number and Jaguar Read More »
In 1989, the first ring of Neptune was discovered. The ring was confirmed by NASA’s Voyager 2 which was the first spacecraft to observe the planet Neptune. Learn more at http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/image/neptune.html.
