Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2000 03:50:39 +0000
Reply-To: TOURBUS-Request@LISTSERV.AOL.COM
Sender: The Internet TourBus - A virtual tour of cyberspace
From: Bob Rankin
Subject: TOURBUS - 17 Oct 2000 - A History Lesson
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TOURBUS Volume 6, Number 26 -- 17 Oct 2000
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\___/ \___/ T h e I n t e r n e t T o u r B u s \___/
FIVE YEARS of Searchable Archives at http://www.TOURBUS.com !!
TODAY'S TOURBUS TOPIC: Computer and Internet History
It must have been about 1974 when my older brother Tom got his first
calculator, a Bowmar Brain. Weighing in at about 3 pounds, it cost
$80 and handled the basics: plus, minus, multiply, divide, and percent
- woohoo! A few years later I got a TI-58 programmable calculator,
which I taught to sit, bark, and play yahtzee. Today's TOURBUS will
take us on a tour of computer and Internet history, with brief stops
to see vintage calculators and the Ig Nobel prizes.
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==========================
STUPID CALCULATOR TRICKS
==========================
My crowning achievement was when I programmed that TI-58 to act as an
alarm clock. I discovered by accident that when the calculator's
display was full of 8's, it would interfere with my stereo, causing it
to buzz. So I wrote a program that would wait until a certain amount
of time elapsed and then perform a multiplication that would overflow
the display, causing it to flash all 8's and make my stereo go buzz,
buzz, buzz. It even had a snooze feature. And you thought the "SHELL
OIL" trick was clever.
For those who are waxing nostalgic, Bill Wood's Electronic Calculator
Collection page has photos of Bowmar, Texas Instruments, Hewlett-
Packard and many other vintage calculators.
http://www.geocities.com/~bjwood/calcs.html
====================
THE IG NOBEL PRIZE
====================
If they had been handing out the Ig Nobel prizes back then, I might
have qualified. What? You haven't heard of the Ig Nobel Prize? The
Ig Nobel Prize honors individuals whose achievements "cannot or should
not be reproduced." The Igs, which are sponsored by the science humor
magazine Annals of Improbable Research, are intended to celebrate the
unusual, honor the imaginative, and take a good-natured poke at some
remarkably goofy things done in the name of science.
http://www.improbable.com/ig
This year's winners were announced earlier this month and included a
study "On the Comparative Palatability of Some Dry-Season Tadpoles
from Costa Rica", software that detects when a cat is walking across
your computer keyboard, and a report "The Collapse of Toilets in
Glasgow."
===============================
COMPUTER AND INTERNET HISTORY
===============================
The history of computing and the story of how the Internet came to be
are fascinating subjects to me. But it's too big a story to tell
here, so I've pulled together some excellent links that you can use to
explore it at your leisure.
The companion Web site for the PBS television special "TRIUMPH OF THE
NERDS" contains a nice history of computing (all the way back to the
abacus) and a "Can You Guess The Computer?" game that tests your
knowledge of early personal computers.
http://www.pbs.org/nerds
THE VIRTUAL MUSEUM OF COMPUTING includes an collection of links
connected with the history of computing and on-line computer-based
exhibits available around the world.
http://www.museums.reading.ac.uk/vmoc
THE BLINKENLIGHTS ARCHAEOLOGICAL INSTITUTE exists to excavate,
preserve, research, and present interesting and historically
significant computing devices. Their museum and research facilities
are located in California's Silicon Valley. Their "Personal Computer
Milestones" page answers the question "What was the first personal
computer?"
http://www.blinkenlights.com/pc.shtml
THE STORY OF MEL has been floating around Usenet since the early
1980's. If you're a programmer, you'll appreciate this chronicle of a
Real Programmer from days gone by.
http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/mel.html
HOBBES' INTERNET TIMELINE gives a brief history of Internet milestones
from 1957 to present.
http://info.isoc.org/guest/zakon/Internet/History/HIT.html
INTERNET HISTORIES FROM ISOC is a page put together by the Internet
Society listing about twenty different "History of the Internet"
stories. Many of these articles are written by the people who
actually invented the hardware, software and technology concepts that
became the foundation of the Internet.
http://www.isoc.org/internet-history
"WHERE WIZARDS STAY UP LATE: THE ORIGINS OF THE INTERNET" is a book by
Katie Hafner & Matthew Lyon. I found it a very enjoyable and not too
technical story of the origins of the Internet based on interviews
with the people who made it happen. Perhaps you've never heard of Bob
Taylor, Vint Cerf, J.R. Licklider, Leonard Kleinrock, or Jon Postel,
but after reading this book you'll want to thank them. Look for the
book at Amazon.com or your favorite bookstore.
That's all for now. See you next time! --Bob Rankin
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