Q 01/05

Which 2016 film follows Black women who worked as 'human computers' at NASA during the Space Race?

A) The Imitation Game

B) Apollo 13

C) Hidden Figures

D) The Right Stuff

Answer · why

C) Hidden Figures

Hidden Figures follows NASA's human computers, a reminder that for centuries before machines took the name, a 'computer' was a person who calculated.

Q 02/05

Which animal is Tux, the official mascot of the Linux kernel, drawn by Larry Ewing in 1996?

A) A penguin

B) A gnu

C) A platypus

D) A puffin

Answer · why

A) A penguin

A penguin was Linus Torvalds' own choice, and he said a small, timid penguin had once bitten him on a visit to Canberra.

Q 03/05

The 1975 Altair 8800 hobby computer reportedly took its name from a destination in which TV series?

A) Doctor Who

B) The Outer Limits

C) Star Trek

D) The Twilight Zone

Answer · why

C) Star Trek

Star Trek, in editor Les Solomon's telling, supplied the name: his daughter suggested Altair because that was where the Enterprise was headed.

Q 04/05

On which symbolic date in 1996 did the webmail service Hotmail launch?

A) 1 January

B) 14 February

C) 4 July

D) 31 October

Answer · why

C) 4 July

4 July, American Independence Day, was picked because the founders saw free email you could read from anywhere as a kind of independence.

Q 05/05

What kind of gadget was the first BlackBerry, launched by Research In Motion in 1999?

A) A flip phone

B) A pocket PC

C) A satellite phone

D) A two-way pager

Answer · why

D) A two-way pager

A two-way pager was the first BlackBerry, and its always-on email made it an enterprise device long before RIM courted consumers.