Has Anyone Seen My Slide Rule? Quiz

Answer: pocket calculator

Slide rules remained popular through the 1950s and '60s even as mainframe computers became widely available, because slide rules were portable and more convenient to use. The arrival of the pocket scientific calculator in the early 1970s changed all that. First came the Hewlett-Packard HP-35, which measured 5.8 inches by 3.2 inches, and boasted a 15-digit LED display and 35 keys that covered the gamut of arithmetic, trigonometric and exponential functions.

Despite its $395 price tag, the HP-35 sold 100,000 units in its first year and was on back-order for months. Before long, the availability of more affordable pocket calculators with full trigonometric and exponential functions heralded the death knell for the humble slide rule.

In 1976, Texas Instruments introduced their TI-30 calculator at a retail price of $25, which was less than the cost of some professional grade slide rules. [ by jmorrow ]

Answer: floppy disk

The venerable floppy disk was the standard for transferable memory storage for many years. The somewhat rarely seen 8" disk was replaced by the much more popular 5.25" disk. The 5.25" disk was generally formatted to hold about 360 kilobytes of memory storage, although more could be stored with some manipulation. Ultimately, a smaller disk was created.

It was the 3.5" disk which could store 1.44 MB of data. Not only was it more efficient, it could easily fit in your pocket. Other formats and sizes were created but were not very popular. Even so, the demise of magnetic storage devices began with the advent of more efficient storage devices. [ by christopherm ]

Answer: people living in the mountains where antennas didn't work

Cable television was first invented by John Watson, in 1948. He and his wife, Margaret, ran a store that sold and serviced television sets, in Mahanoy City, Pennsylvania. Business wasn't booming though, because the town's location, nestled in the mountains, made it difficult for people to get the signal from any television stations, even with antennas.

The resourceful Watsons mounted an antenna on a pole located on top of a mountain and, in simplest terms, ran a cable from there into his shop (boosters were also used).

It wasn't long before his neighbours were asking to be connected and he was recognised (by U.S. Congress) as being the founder of cable TV. [ by skunkee ]

Answer: Ticker tape machines

Before the ticker tape machine was invented, stock prices were delivered by hand by messengers known as 'pad shovers', who spent all day running to and from the trading floor (this was before the development of the telephone). The first ticker tape machines appeared around 1867, and got their name from the sound made by the machine when it was printing.

They remained in use until the 1960s, when computers and television became the dominant mode of communicating financial information. However, certain aspects of the ticker tape endured even after the machines fell out of use. Movements in stock prices were still known as 'ticks', and the crawling stock ticker that showed up on TV news shows resembled ticker tape printouts. Even the ticker tape parade managed to survive, although the cities that held them had to utilize something other than used ticker tape as confetti and streamers. [ by jmorrow ]

Answer: Lisa

Even though the Lisa was a brilliant project and device, it was well outside of the typical consumer's price range. It incorporated a well-designed graphical user interface and was significantly well ahead of its time in terms of memory storage and ease of use. Nevertheless, the price tag and lack of third party support contributed to its early demise. In addition, the software unduly taxed the hardware capabilities, which is a problem that even plagues modern systems.
[ by christopherm ]

Answer: Bodhran

Ballistae and catapults are types of torsion siege engines, whereas the trebuchet hurls its missiles by counterweight. (An even earlier version of the trebuchet, called the traction trebuchet, is thought to have been in use in China as early as the fifth century BCE). Rocks and incendiary missiles were commonly used against besieged cities in an attempt to break down their walls and destroy the buildings inside. An early form of biological warfare began in medieval times when armies would use the siege engines to fling garbage or contaminated corpses over the walls to spread disease in the enemy city.

A bodhrán, on the other hand, is a Celtic drum. [ by LadyCaitriona ]

Answer: 16 inch, 45 rpm

45s were known as singles and only held one song on each side, the A-side, which was (usually) the better song, and the B- or flip-side. Albums were recorded onto 10- or 12-inch discs and lasted about 20 minutes a side.
78s played a lot faster and were only good for about five minutes each side. They were also very crackly and tended to jump a lot.

All records, regardless of type, were playable on a record player. Most players had the option of various speeds, but I guess everyone had fun playing records at the non-recommended speeds--Paul Robeson would sound like he had just sucked a helium balloon, or Doris Day would have the deepest voice you could imagine.
[ by ozzz2002 ]

Answer: Dot matrix

Remember the days when you needed to have a good few hours to print out a document because the printer was so slow? The dot matrix printer was one of these printers, and it was certainly one of the noisiest. It utilized a system that formed the letters with dots, and the printer head would have a ribbon on it that resembled a typewriter ribbon. As the head would run back and forth on the page, the ribbon would strike the dots and leave the ink on the paper. If you would look closely, you could see the individual dots that made up each and every letter.
The one advantage the printer had is that it was able to make carbon copies on the appropriate paper. Graphics, on the other hand, were impossible to produce with this kind of printer. It was thankfully pushed out of the market by the advent of the inkjet printer. Nevertheless, a few dot matrix systems are still in use today, mostly in old cash registers and in old ATMs.
[ by LeoDaVinci ]

Answer: Walkman

The Walkman was a modified version of the earlier Pressman--a cassette tape recording device marketed exclusively to members of the press. The Pressman's recording functions were removed and replaced with a stereophonic sound system, and then the whole device was reworked with lower-end components until it could be sold profitably to the general public. Between 1979 and 1989 Sony sold over 50 million Walkman units worldwide, and today the name is synonymous with personal cassette player and even has its own entry in the Oxford English Dictionary.
[ by LadyCaitriona ]

Answer: Video Graphics Array

The introduction of the Video Graphics Array in the early 1980s set a new standard for computer monitors. The term 'array' replaced the previous term 'adapter' since the new video technology could be incorporated into the motherboard as opposed to relying on a separate slot. Some of you might remember the older renditions, such as MDA, CGA, EGA, etc. Ultimately, video graphics displays will exceed the limits of human perception. Nevertheless, our computer monitors play an important part in our computing experience.
[ by christopherm ]