Q 01/05

Microsoft Office first went on sale in 1989 for which computer, a year before its Windows version?

A) Commodore Amiga

B) NeXT Computer

C) Macintosh

D) Atari ST

Answer · why

C) Macintosh

Macintosh users got the suite first, in a 1989 bundle of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Mail that began as a limited-time promotion before becoming a reg...

Q 02/05

Clippy, the paperclip helper that arrived with Office 97, was officially given which name?

A) Clippit

B) Clipper

C) Clipton

D) Clipsy

Answer · why

A) Clippit

Clippit was the name in every version of Office that had the helper, but the public's nickname stuck so firmly that Microsoft's own marketing later bo...

Q 03/05

In 2020 scientists renamed 27 human genes because Microsoft Excel kept converting their names into what?

A) Fractions

B) Prices

C) Formulas

D) Dates

Answer · why

D) Dates

Dates were the trouble: Excel read the gene MARCH1 as 1 March and SEPT1 as 1 September, so the naming committee changed them to MARCHF1 and SEPTIN1.

Q 04/05

Which kind of hidden game did programmers tuck inside Microsoft Excel 97 as a secret Easter egg?

A) A pinball machine

B) A flight simulator

C) A text adventure game

D) A chess tournament

Answer · why

B) A flight simulator

A flight simulator sat hidden in the spreadsheet, and the same Office 97 release tucked a pinball game inside Word and a Magic 8 Ball inside its datab...

Q 05/05

Which webmail service, bought by Microsoft in 1997, was fully replaced by Outlook.com in 2013?

A) Hotmail

B) RocketMail

C) Excite Mail

D) AOL Mail

Answer · why

A) Hotmail

Hotmail cost Microsoft an estimated $400 million and had been running since 1996, long enough to carry the MSN and Windows Live brands before its fina...