Q 01/05

Which animal was trained to play tic-tac-toe against people in arcade machines popular in the 1970s?

A) A parrot

B) A guinea pig

C) A chicken

D) A rabbit

Answer · why

C) A chicken

A chicken took its cue from a light the human opponent could not see. A computer chose every move, and the bird had been conditioned to peck wherever ...

Q 02/05

Which 1980s film has a military computer learn that nuclear conflict is futile by playing itself at tic-tac-toe?

A) WarGames

B) Blade Runner

C) The Terminator

D) Short Circuit

Answer · why

A) WarGames

WarGames has its computer, WOPR, race through game after game before it abandons the missile launch it was planning and suggests a game of chess inste...

Q 03/05

Donald Michie's 1961 machine MENACE learned noughts and crosses using coloured beads kept in 304 of what?

A) Biscuit tins

B) Matchboxes

C) Jam jars

D) Egg cartons

Answer · why

B) Matchboxes

Matchboxes stood in for a computer Michie did not have. Beads were taken out after a defeat and added after a victory, so the machine gradually stoppe...

Q 04/05

MIT students built a computer that plays perfect tic-tac-toe, now a museum piece, from which construction toy?

A) Meccano

B) Lincoln Logs

C) Erector Set

D) Tinkertoy

Answer · why

D) Tinkertoy

Tinkertoy rods and spools made up almost the whole machine, built in the 1970s to show what such simple parts could compute. It is now kept at the Com...

Q 05/05

Some of the oldest claimed tic-tac-toe-style boards are cut into the roof slabs of a temple in which country?

A) Greece

B) Iraq

C) Egypt

D) India

Answer · why

C) Egypt

Egypt's temple at Kurna carries the boards, long dated to about 1400 BC. That date is disputed, because some of the carvings include Coptic crosses fr...