Correct: C. Manchester Baby

The Manchester Small-Scale Experimental Machine, commonly called the Manchester Baby, first executed a program stored in electronic memory. The historic program ran on June 21, 1948, demonstrating the stored-program principle that became fundamental to modern computing. The experimental machine was primarily built to test Williams-Kilburn Tube memory technology.

Correct: D. Tom Kilburn

Tom Kilburn wrote the program that first ran on the Manchester Baby. His highest-factor routine successfully executed on June 21, 1948, establishing a major milestone in stored-program computing. The achievement demonstrated that both instructions and data could be held electronically in a computer's memory.

Correct: B. UNIVAC I

UNIVAC I gained widespread public attention after its use in predicting the outcome of the 1952 U.S. presidential election. The machine had been created by J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly, who had also designed ENIAC. Its public visibility helped familiarize a much broader audience with electronic computers.

Correct: C. IBM 701

The IBM 701 made history as IBM's first electronic computer. Originally known inside IBM as the Defense Calculator, it was developed largely for scientific, government, and defense-related computing. Its introduction marked IBM's entry into the large-scale electronic computer market.

Correct: D. IBM 305 RAMAC

The IBM 305 RAMAC shipped with the world's first commercial hard disk drive. Its Model 350 disk storage unit provided random access to data and offered a major alternative to punched cards and magnetic tape. IBM shipped an early RAMAC system to Zellerbach Paper in San Francisco in 1956.

Correct: A. John Bardeen and Walter Brattain

John Bardeen and Walter Brattain achieved transistor action in a point-contact device at Bell Labs in December 1947. Their semiconductor amplifier offered a path toward replacing bulky and unreliable vacuum tubes in electronic equipment. William Shockley subsequently made major contributions to transistor technology as part of the same Bell Labs research effort.

Correct: B. Busicom

The Intel 4004 originated from a custom chip project for Japanese calculator manufacturer Busicom. Intel engineers transformed the requested calculator logic into a more general programmable processor architecture. That decision helped establish microprocessors as flexible components usable far beyond calculators.

Correct: C. DEC PDP-8

The DEC PDP-8 is generally considered the first commercially successful minicomputer. Its relatively small size and lower price allowed laboratories, factories, and smaller organizations to obtain computing power that had previously been dominated by expensive mainframes. Thousands of PDP-8 systems were sold and helped establish the minicomputer market.

Correct: A. System/360

IBM announced the System/360 family on April 7, 1964. Instead of maintaining separate incompatible product lines, IBM created a range of machines sharing a unified architecture and largely compatible software. The approach transformed mainframe computing and became one of the most important product strategies in IBM's history.

Correct: B. Tommy Flowers

Tommy Flowers designed Colossus, an electronic machine created to help break the German Lorenz cipher during World War II. The machines operated at Bletchley Park and dramatically accelerated cryptanalytic work that previously could take weeks. Colossus was one of the earliest large-scale electronic computing systems.

Correct: B. Lorenz

Colossus was designed specifically to assist in breaking the complex Lorenz cipher used by Nazi Germany. British codebreakers processed intercepted encrypted messages on punched paper tape through the electronic machine. Its speed reduced some cryptanalytic tasks from weeks to hours.

Correct: A. Howard Aiken

Howard Aiken, a Harvard physics professor, conceived the Harvard Mark I. IBM designed and built the room-sized electromechanical calculator based on Aiken's ideas. The machine was used for demanding numerical calculations before electronic stored-program computers superseded its technology.

Correct: B. IBM

IBM designed and built the Harvard Mark I, which had been conceived by Harvard professor Howard Aiken. The machine relied heavily on electromechanical relays rather than the fully electronic architecture of later computers. Its construction represented a major achievement in automated large-scale calculation.

Correct: B. DEC PDP-1

DEC's PDP-1 was introduced in 1960 and helped establish characteristics later associated with minicomputers. A typical system included a graphical CRT display and paper-tape input and output while requiring only one operator. Its accessibility attracted an influential community of programmers and hackers at MIT.

Correct: A. Stretch

IBM's 7030 was commonly known as Stretch. It incorporated numerous advanced architectural techniques and represented the high end of IBM's transistorized 7000-series computers. Technologies developed during the project influenced later IBM systems, particularly the highly successful System/360 family.

Correct: B. Olivetti Programma 101

The Olivetti Programma 101 was a programmable desktop calculating machine that went on sale in 1965. It used discrete transistors and acoustic delay-line memory and could perform arithmetic operations and calculate square roots. Its compact form anticipated later desktop personal computing concepts.

Correct: A. HP 2116A

The HP 2116A was Hewlett-Packard's first computer. It was designed primarily as an instrument controller that could connect to a wide range of HP laboratory and measurement equipment. This allowed customers to automate and computerize complex test systems.

Correct: B. Instrument controller

The HP 2116A was developed primarily as a versatile instrument controller. It connected with programmable laboratory and measurement equipment, allowing scientists and engineers to automate their workflows. The system marked Hewlett-Packard's entry into the computer business.

Correct: A. 9-Dec-68

Douglas Engelbart publicly demonstrated the computer mouse on December 9, 1968, during a landmark presentation in San Francisco. His team showed the NLS system to roughly a thousand computer professionals. The demonstration also featured concepts such as hypertext, dynamic file linking, and collaborative screen sharing.

Correct: B. DEC PDP-7

The earliest UNIX development began on a DEC PDP-7 at Bell Labs in 1969. Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and other researchers used the relatively little-used machine while creating the new operating system. UNIX later moved to newer hardware and evolved into one of computing's most influential operating-system families.

Correct: A. B

B was the direct predecessor of C at Bell Labs. Ken Thompson developed B from ideas in BCPL, but its design was not ideal for the byte-oriented PDP-11. Dennis Ritchie extended the language with data types and a compiler, leading to what became C.

Correct: B. Four

ARPANET had four connected nodes by December 1969. The first node had been installed at UCLA earlier that autumn, and the network quickly expanded to several research sites. These early links demonstrated remote computing and resource sharing across dedicated data connections.

Correct: A. 1-Jan-83

ARPANET transitioned from its older NCP protocol to TCP/IP on January 1, 1983. The coordinated change required connected hosts to adopt the new protocol suite at the same time. This transition was a pivotal step toward the interoperable network-of-networks structure associated with the modern Internet.

Correct: A. Elizabeth II

Queen Elizabeth II sent an email on March 26, 1976, during a networking demonstration at the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment in Malvern. The event illustrated how electronic mail was spreading beyond specialist computing researchers into broader public awareness. It is frequently noted as an early high-profile use of network email.

Correct: C. $10 million

A Cray-1 supercomputer cost about $10 million. Its exceptional performance made it suitable for demanding work such as national defense calculations and weather forecasting. The machine combined vector processing, dense integrated-circuit packaging, and a specialized cooling system.

Correct: A. Commodore PET

The Commodore PET was introduced in 1977 with a MOS Technology 6502 microprocessor and a built-in cassette drive. It was sold as a fully assembled system that integrated a keyboard, display, and storage device in one package. The PET became popular in schools and homes and helped establish Commodore as a major personal-computer manufacturer.

Correct: B. TRS-80

The TRS-80 sold 10,000 units in its first month despite a company projection of only 3,000 units for the entire first year. Radio Shack's large retail network helped make the machine accessible to home users and schools. The original package included a Z80 processor, display, 4 KB of memory, BASIC, and cassette storage.

Correct: B. Zilog Z80

The original TRS-80 was powered by a Zilog Z80 microprocessor. The Z80 was compatible with software written for Intel's earlier 8080 while providing additional built-in instructions. Radio Shack paired it with 4 KB of memory and a built-in BASIC interpreter in the original TRS-80 package.

Correct: A. Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston

Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston created VisiCalc. Their electronic spreadsheet allowed users to change financial assumptions and have results recalculated automatically, a major improvement over manual spreadsheet work. The program was initially developed for the Apple II and helped increase that computer's usefulness in business environments.

Correct: A. WordStar

Rob Barnaby created WordStar while working at MicroPro International. It became one of the first popular word-processing programs for personal computers and originally ran on the CP/M operating system. WordStar later appeared on DOS and Windows and maintained a loyal user base even after newer competitors became dominant.

Correct: C. Motorola 68000

The Apple Lisa used a Motorola 68000 microprocessor. Its graphical user interface and mouse-oriented interaction made it an important milestone in personal computing despite the system's limited commercial success. The Lisa also incorporated ideas influenced by earlier work at Xerox PARC.

Correct: B. NeXT computer

The world's first web server ran on a NeXT computer used by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN. Berners-Lee developed code directly on the machine while implementing the first Web server and browser. The computer carried a handwritten warning so colleagues would not accidentally switch off the server.

Correct: B. info.cern.ch

The address of the world's first website and web server was info.cern.ch. The site was dedicated to the World Wide Web project and explained concepts such as hypertext and how people could create servers and pages. It ran on Tim Berners-Lee's NeXT computer at CERN.

Correct: A. Graffiti

Palm's original handheld organizers used the gesture-based handwriting system called Graffiti. Users entered text by writing simplified character shapes with a stylus, allowing the device to recognize handwriting efficiently with modest processing power. Palm also emphasized synchronization with personal computers as a core part of the product experience.

Correct: C. $1,300

The original Bondi Blue iMac launched at approximately $1,300, with Apple announcing a U.S. price of $1,299. The all-in-one computer included a 233 MHz PowerPC G3 processor, a 4 GB hard drive, 32 MB of RAM, a CD-ROM drive, and a 15-inch monitor. Its striking design and consumer-focused simplicity helped make it a major product for Apple.

Correct: B. Silicon Graphics Incorporated

Silicon Graphics Incorporated released Maya in 1998 as a next-generation 3D animation tool. The software incorporated technology from earlier systems created by Wavefront and Alias and rapidly gained adoption in film, television, games, and computer graphics. Maya became one of the most influential professional 3D production packages.

Correct: C. 12.5 million

Guinness World Records lists 12.5 million units for the Commodore 64's best-selling desktop computer record. Historical estimates vary, and Guinness notes that Commodore's own estimate was higher, but a credible modern estimate places sales at around 12.5 million units. The machine's long production life and broad software ecosystem made it one of the defining home computers of the 1980s.