Triumph of the Nerds Questions



Name: ___________________________________ Period: __________ Date: ____________________

Triumph of the Nerds Questions

Volume 1: Impressing Their Friends (50 minutes)

1) What is the name of the person who started Microsoft with Bill Gates?

2) What are the names of the two founders of Apple Computer?

3) A set of computer instructions is called a _____.

4) Grace Hopper invented what computer language?

5) What "technological breakthrough" allowed computers to become small enough to fit on a desk?

6) What company invented the microprocessor?

7) What was the name of the world's first personal computer?

8) In what year was that computer introduced?

9) How were data entered into that computer?

10) Why did Bill Gates quit college?

11) According to Jim Warren, why was Silicon Valley able to develop technology so quickly in the late 1970s?

12) What was Steve Wozniak able to do to make the early Apple computers marketable?

13) According to the "nerds," what did the Apple II computer need to reach "the rest of us?"

14) What type of software was VisiCalc?

15) How wealthy did the creators of VisiCalc, Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston, ultimately become?

Name: ___________________________________ Period: __________ Date: ____________________

Triumph of the Nerds Questions

Volume 2: Riding the Bear (50 minutes)

1) Up until the very early 1980s, what type of computers did IBM make?

2) How did the climate of IBM differ from that of the Silicon Valley companies of the late 1970s?

3) With regards to the IBM personal computer, what does the term "open architecture" mean?

4) According to Bob Cringely, what are the "two essential bits of software" that all personal computers require?

5) What made Bill Gates the richest man in the world?

6) How did Microsoft go about "creating" an operating system for IBM?

7) What are CP/M, Q-DOS, and PC-DOS?

8) How much money did Microsoft pay to purchase Q-DOS from Seattle Computer Products?

9) How much money did Microsoft ultimately make off of this purchase?

10) When was the IBM PC introduced to the world?

11) What was the "killer application" for the IBM PC?

12) What is reverse engineering, and how is it achieved?

13) In 1990, Microsoft ended its relationship with IBM with its decision to choose between which two operating systems?

Name: ___________________________________ Period: __________ Date: ____________________

Triumph of the Nerds Questions

Volume 3: Great Artists Steal (50 minutes)

1) What is a graphical user interface (GUI)?

2) In the mid 1970s, what company first created the graphical user interface and the mouse?

3) How rich did this company become off of these developments?

4) At his trip to Xerox PARC in 1979, what single concept really impressed Steve Jobs?

5) What company (initially) was Apple's greatest rival in the PC industry?

6) With what company did Apple collaborate to create software for the new Macintosh computer in the early 1980s?

7) When was the Apple Macintosh introduced to the world?

8) What company invented the first laser printer?

9) What is desktop publishing?

10) Why did Apple sue Microsoft? Who won?

11) In what year was Microsoft Windows 3 introduced?

12) The introduction of Windows 3 had what effect on Macintosh computer sales?

13) According to Larry Ellison, what will happen to personal computers?

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