Pioneers in Computing Trivia Quiz

Answer: Invention of world wide web

After graduating from Oxford, Berners Lee developed the HTTP hypertext protocol while working at CERN in 1980 to facilitate data sharing among the researchers. In 1989 he joined hypertext to the nascent internet, and the website was put online in 1981.

It included instruction for using a web browser, setting up a web server, and creating a web site. In 1994 he was part of the group which defined standards for the web.

Answer: "Mythical Man Month" - software development theory

Fred Brooks (1931- ) managed the development of the IBM 360 operating system and wrote the seminal book "The Mythical Man Month" as a result of his experiences. This was one of the first software engineering books and described the difficulties of managing large scale complex developments.

The basic premise of his book was that adding people late in a development is counterproductive and may accentuate schedule problems. Late additions to a project require training to contribute, the training and their management reduces the effectiveness of other project members, and the number of project interfaces (people to people) increase. The book also contains many other keen observations for teams working complex problems.

Answer: Internet message protocols (TCP/IP), net mail

Vinton Cerf (1943- ) was an American internet pioneer, who led various groups to develop the TCP/IP communication protocol used to transmit messages across the net. Moving from point to point communication to network communication required defining how to transmit messages (packets), resolving out-of-order or missing parts of a message, and defining a universal protocol for all hosts to follow.

From 1982 through 1986 he helped develop MCI Mail, the first email service to be connected to the net. Since then he has served on many boards to influence the future of the internet. Since 2015 he has been working the issue of potential digital obsolescence due to data stored on older devices that may lose data or are have peripherals or formats no longer in wide use.

Answer: Computer designer Control Data

Seymour Cray (1925-1996) was an American electrical engineer and supercomputer designer. In 1957 he and William Norris founded Control Data Corporation (CDC). At this time of IBM dominance in the computer market, CDC was able to carve a successful niche building the fastest computers that were used for scientific purposes.

Cray's strength was recognizing this required more than CPU performance, and included peripheral processing units to improve input/output performance and system throughput. He later formed the Cray corporation to build supercomputers to Los Alamos and the National Center for Atmospheric research, among others.

Answer: Memory error correction codes

After Richard Hamming worked on the Manhattan Project, he shared an office at Bell Labs with pioneering giants Claude Shannon and John Tukey. In 1947 he had an over-the-weekend calculation fail because of a transmission error. The use of parity bits was successful in determining single bit transmission errors, but Hamming thought a method of correcting error bits could be found and developed a better method of error detection and correction by using additional bits.

The error correction Hamming codes proved vital for successful transmissions, retrieval of data from files, and memory error corrections.

Answer: Father of information theory, file compression

Claude Shannon is regarded as the father of information theory, His master's thesis in 1937 demonstrated the potential application of Boolean algebra concepts to digital logic circuits (AND, OR, NAND gates).

During World War II he worked in cryptanalysis for the US Government. In 1948 he published his landmark "A Mathematical Theory of Communication". This discussed the most efficient methods for transmitting information, a concept that proved useful for data compression techniques, among others.

Answer: US Navy lead, coined the term "debug", COBOL

Grace Hopper was an American computer scientist who rose to the rank of rear admiral. She was one of the first programmers on Harvard's Mark I computer, where she realized that translating computer independent commands was a more efficient method of constructing code. She developed one of the first compilers and developed COBOL, one of the first higher order languages - one still in use today for business applications.

Later she developed implementation standards for new computer languages and systems, and she was an early advocated for distributed computer processing. While working on the Mark I computer, one day a problem was traced to a moth attached to a relay - hence the term debugging.

She was noted as an innovative speaker, famous for display a peppercorn, a foot long wire, a 984 foot coil of wire to illustrate the distance light could travel in a picosecond, nanosecond, and a microsecond to demonstrate why satellite communication took time.

Answer: Designed Bletchley Park Colossus computer

Tommie Flowers (1905-1998) was a British engineer who had been working in the telecommunication branch of the British Post Office prior to World War II. He was assigned to Bletchley Park to work with Alan Turing and first developed a more sophisticated machine called the Heath Robinson, which was superior to Turing's "bombes".

Flowers' attempt to build an even more sophisticated machine labelled the Colossus was opposed by the Bletchley Park management. However, the Post Office Research station supported Flowers, and his efforts occurred at Dollis Hill outside of Bletchley Park. The Mark I or Colossus was built in 1943 and was used to decrypt the Lorenz cipher, a much more complex cipher than the original Enigma.

After the war, Flowers returned to the Post Office Research Operations group and helped design the first all-electronic telephone exchange in the UK.

Answer: Defined modern computer architecture

John von Neumann (1903-1957) was one of the scientific giants of the 20th century. A former child prodigy, he made major contributions to mathematics, physics, statistics, economics, and computing. His ability to solve complex problems quickly, even when presented to him with no previous warning, made him a figure of awe to even the members of the Manhattan Project.

His major contribution to computing was a paper he wrote while a consultant that recommended a computer architecture that had the computer program and data occupy the same memory space. The early World War II computing machines had specified the program steps either by a program tape that was read while processing or steps specified by a plugboard - both certainly hindrances to software as we know it today. In fairness, the ENIAC computer being developed at the same time as his paper was being built according to what is now called the "von Neumann architecture".

Answer: Predicted computer speed improvements

Gordon Moore (1929 - ) was one of the co-founders and former CEO of Intel corporation. In 1965 he was asked what would happen in the semiconductor industry over the next ten years. His article claimed the number of components in an integrated circuit would double about every year for the next ten years. In 1975 he revised his prediction so that the doubling would occur every two years. His prediction has been labeled "Moore's Law".

Intel developed many advances in integrated circuits, memory design, and microprocessors while Moore was the chairman.