Deck 1: Catalysts for Change

Question 1

Which of the following was not a feature of cash registers in the early 1900s?

A) Ability to compute total of purchases
B) Ability to print itemized receipts for customers
C) Ability to print log of transactions for owners
D) Ability to compute amount of change to give customer
E) Ability to ring a bell every time cash drawer is opened

Answer 1

D

Question 2

Which of the following phrases best describes a system that inputs data, performs one or more calculations, and produces output data?

A) manual calculator
B) digital computer
C) data-processing system
D) difference engine
E) cash register

Answer 2

C

Question 3

Tablets, abacuses, and manual tables

A) are no longer used, because of the proliferation of calculators and computers.
B) are examples of aids to manual calculating.
C) were developed in Western Europe in the late Middle Ages.
D) replaced Hindu-Arabic numerals as the preferred way to do calculations.
E) All of the above.

Answer 3

B

Question 4

Which of the following phrases does not describe the Gilded Age in America?

A) rapid industrialization
B) economic expansion
C) widespread electrification
D) concentration of corporate power
E) corporate mergers

Question 5

Punched card tabulation was invented by Herman Hollerith, an employee of

A) the Pennsylvania Railroad.
B) the Census Bureau.
C) the Pennsylvania Steel Company.
D) the Burroughs Adding Machine Company.
E) IBM.

Question 6

The calculating machine of Georg and Edvard Sheutz

A) computed the values of polynomial functions.
B) typeset the results of its computations.
C) performed calculations faster than they could be done manually.
D) performed calculations more reliably than they could be done manually.
E) All of the above.

Question 7

The first commercial electronic digital computers were produced just after

A) the Spanish-American War.
B) World War I.
C) World War II.
D) the Korean War.
E) the Vietnam War.

Question 8

The two principal catalysts for the Information Age have been

A) books and pamphlets.
B) computers and communication networks.
C) movie theaters and public parks.
D) newspapers and magazines.
E) radio and television.

Question 9

Programming languages were developed in order to

A) make it possible to program computers in English.
B) make programming faster and less error-prone.
C) speed translations between English and Russian during the Cold War.
D) improve the computation speed of computers, which were very expensive.
E) All of the above.

Question 10

Which of the following was not an activity of the People's Computer Company, a not-for-profit corporation in the San Francisco area?

A) Publishing a newspaper containing the source code to programs
B) Allowing people to rent time on a time-shared computer
C) Hosting Friday-evening game-playing sessions
D) Promoting a culture in which computer enthusiasts freely shared software
E) Developing the world's first graphical user interface

Question 11

Which of the following was not a result of the adoption of mechanical calculators?

A) Less demand for "superstars" who could rapidly compute sums by hand
B) Higher productivity of bookkeepers
C) Higher salaries of bookkeepers
D) Proliferation of companies making calculators
E) Feminization of bookkeeping

Question 12

Who wrote "An Open Letter to Hobbyists," complaining about software theft?

A) Stewart Brand
B) Bob Frankston
C) Bill Gates
D) Steve Jobs
E) Steve Wozniak

Question 13

Which of the following was not an early programming language?

A) BASIC
B) COBOL
C) DATA-FLOW
D) FLOW-MATIC
E) FORTRAN

Question 14

Which Cold War program played an important role in advancing integrated circuit technology?

A) B-52 bomber
B) Hydrogen bomb
C) Mark 37 torpedo
D) Minuteman II ballistic missile
E) NORAD radar network

Question 15

The company that invented the microprocessor is

A) Fujitsu
B) Hewlett-Packard
C) IBM
D) Intel
E) Texas Instruments

Question 16

The mechanical adding machines of Pascal and Leibniz were not widely adopted because

A) they were too expensive.
B) there were unreliable.
C) they were too difficult to program.
D) they could not handle fractions.
E) bookkeepers successfully lobbied the King, and he made the machines illegal.

Question 17

A semiconductor device containing transistors, capacitors, and resistors is called

A) a computer.
B) a diode.
C) an integrated circuit.
D) a radio.
E) a transformer.

Question 18

Which statement best supports the conclusion that society can control whether to adopt a new technology?

A) No new nuclear power plants were built in the United States for 25 years after the accident at Three Mile Island.
B) About half of all email messages are spam.
C) Despite decades of research, fusion power is an elusive goal.
D) People do not have to listen to Rush Limbaugh if they do not want to.
E) Some new technologies are simply too expensive to even consider adopting.

Question 19

Which company produced the System/360, a family of 19 compatible mainframe computers?

A) Fujitsu
B) Hewlett-Packard
C) IBM
D) Intel
E) Texas Instruments

Question 20

Software that allows multiple users to edit and run their programs simultaneously on the same computer is called

A) a data-processing system.
B) an intranet.
C) a microprocessor.
D) a programming language.
E) a time-sharing system..

Question 21

The first electronic networking technology widely used in the United States was the

A) Internet.
B) radio.
C) telegraph.
D) telephone.
E) television.

Question 22

What term is used to describe a high-speed Internet connection, such as a cable modem or a DSL modem, that is at least 10 times faster than a dial-up Internet connection?

A) broadband
B) hypertext
C) Internet2
D) the Matrix
E) World Wide Web

Question 23

The software company that provided IBM with the operating system for its PC was

A) Apple.
B) Boeing.
C) Microsoft.
D) Novell.
E) Tandy.

Question 24

Hypertext is supposed to mimic

A) the associative memory of human beings.
B) the way that creeks flow into streams and streams merge into rivers.
C) constellations in the night sky.
D) road networks.
E) the way that some people "channel surf" with a remote control.

Question 25

A Web browser enables you to

A) view Web pages.
B) edit Web pages.
C) create Web pages.
D) run programs on many computers at the same time.
E) All of the above

Question 26

What visionary invented the computer mouse and demonstrated windows, email, and live network videoconferencing at "the mother of all demos" in 1968?

A) Vannevar Bush
B) Douglas Engelbart
C) Al Gore
D) Alan Kay
E) Ted Nelson

Question 27

A typewriter that prints a message transmitted over a telegraph line is called a

A) computer.
B) monitor.
C) teletype.
D) terminal.
E) transponder.

Question 28

A key application that first made personal computers more attractive to business was

A) the spreadsheet program.
B) the World Wide Web.
C) desktop publishing.
D) video editing.
E) email.

Question 29

Which country has the fastest broadband connections on average?

A) China
B) Germany
C) India
D) South Korea
E) United States

Question 30

In the fourth century the codex replaced the scroll because

A) it was more durable, and it was much easier to look up a particular passage.
B) it was much lighter, and it could be made much more rapidly.
C) Gutenberg's printing press had just been invented.
D) there was a worldwide shortage of papyrus.
E) All of the above

Question 31

The power of radio as a medium of mass communication was demonstrated in 1938 when Orson Welles put on a dramatization of

A) War of the Worlds.
B) Hamlet.
C) Homer's Odyssey.
D) the assassination of Franklin Roosevelt.
E) 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

Question 32

ARPA Director J.C.R. Licklider conceived of a Galactic Network that would

A) control weapons from space.
B) guide spacecraft to distant planets.
C) become the world's most powerful number-crunching machine.
D) facilitate the exchange of programs and data.
E) All of the above

Question 33

What is the name of a program that follows hyperlinks, collecting information about Web sites?

A) demon
B) hacker
C) spider
D) trawler
E) worm

Question 34

Nearly all early telephones were installed in businesses, because

A) people were afraid that telephones were dangerous.
B) people thought that the government was using telephones as eavesdropping devices.
C) only men were allowed to use a telephone.
D) most homes did not have electricity.
E) leasing a telephone was expensive.

Question 35

The Pony Express went out of business when

A) the Mexican War ended in 1846.
B) the Civil War began in 1861.
C) the transcontinental telegraph was completed.
D) AT&T completed the national telephone network.
E) the radio was invented.

Question 36

Alexander Graham Bell invented the harmonic or musical telegraph, which enabled

A) more than one message to be sent over a single telegraph wire at the same time.
B) human speech to be sent over a telegraph wire.
C) music to be send over a telegraph wire.
D) B and C
E) None of the above.

Question 37

Guglielmo Marconi originally conceived of the radio as a way to

A) transmit telegraph messages without wires.
B) transmit electricity without wires.
C) transmit votes in national elections.
D) transmit light without wires.
E) All of the above

Question 38

The World Wide Web is the creation of

A) Tim Berners-Lee.
B) Vannevar Bush.
C) Douglas Engelbart.
D) Alan Kay.
E) Ted Nelson.

Question 39

The first popular personal computer with a graphical user interface was the

A) Apple Macintosh.
B) Compaq Presario.
C) IBM PC.
D) NeXT workstation.
E) Tandy TRS-80.

Question 40

One of the first and most important applications of the ARPANET was

A) email.
B) voice mail.
C) spreading computer viruses.
D) disseminating anti-Communist propaganda to American citizens.
E) stealing secrets from the Soviet Union.

Question 41

An integrated circuit that can be programmed to perform a wide variety of tasks is called a .

Question 42

In 1957 eight key employees of Shockley Semiconductor left to form their own company. The company founded by "the traitorous eight" was .

Question 43

Herman Hollerith invented to help the U.S. Bureau of the Census tally information about tens of millions of residents.

Question 44

How did the National Science Foundation stimulate the development of commercial, long-distance Internet connections in the United States?

Question 45

Which device resulted in the creation of the first "on-line" communities?

Question 46

Three important aids to manual calculating are .

Question 47

The invention of the addressed two challenges faced by department store owners in the late 19^th century: creating detailed sales records and embezzlement by employees.

Question 48

The development of the personal computer was influenced by the power-to-the-people, do-it-yourself movement around in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Question 49

What two significant developments made personal computers more attractive to businesses in the late 1970s and early 1980s?

Question 50

Blaise Pascal and Gottfried Leibniz are remembered as computer pioneers for their invention of .

Question 51

Why was the ARPANET designed so that the loss of any single computer would not prevent the rest of the network from working?

Question 52

The adoption of mechanical calculators in offices changed the profession of bookkeeping. Employers .

Question 53

In the earliest digital computers every instruction was coded as a long number. People invented to make coding faster and less error-prone.

Question 54

In 1964 IBM announced the System/360, a series of 19 compatible computers. What advantage do compatible computers have for a business wishing to upgrade its systems?

Question 55

By 1870 fire alarm boxes were in use in 75 major cities in the United States. Which popular communications technology enabled the creation of these alarm boxes?

Question 56

A series of inventions led to the creation of the electronic digital computer shortly after this war: .

Question 57

In the 1960s the invention of allowed multiple people to interact more-or-less simultaneously with a single computer.

Question 58

Demand for mechanical calculators increased tremendously in America in the late 19^th Century due to the increase in size of .

Question 59

A single semiconductor device containing transistors, capacitors, and resistors is called .

Question 60

In the first half of the 20^th century, AT&T used vacuum tubes to construct amplifiers that made long distance telephone calls possible. AT&T funded research to develop a semiconductor replacement to the vacuum tube. The research resulted in the invention of the .

Question 61

Devices used in the creation, storage, manipulation, exchange, and dissemination of data, including text, sound, and images, fall into the category of technology.

Question 62

The two most popular applications of the Internet are .

Question 63

Hypertext is a ___________of nodes containing __________.

Question 64

In January 1984 Apple Computer released the Macintosh. The Macintosh is notable because it was the first commodity personal computer with a .