ITSR Trivia Nov 16, 2021

Here’s a review of this week’s questions:

  1. In what year was the O.S. invented?
  2. In Microsoft Word, what is the shortcut key for underline?
  3. What does “LAN” stand for?

And here are the answers:

  1. The first operating system was introduced in the early 1950’s, it was called GMOS and was created by General Motors for IBM’s machine the 701. Operating systems in the 1950’s were called single-stream batch processing systems because the data was submitted in groups. By the late 1960’s operating systems designers were able to develop the system of multiprogramming in which a computer program will be able to perform multiple jobs at the same time. The introduction of multiprogramming was a major part in the development of operating systems because it allowed a CPU to be busy nearly 100 percent of the time that it was in operation. Personal computing changed everything, and in 1975, Paul Allen and Bill Gates had a vision to take personal computing to the next level, eventually introducing the Windows Operating System that we all know and love today.
  2. The shortcut for underline is Ctrl+U. MS shortcuts are a fascinating pursuit and trying to determine exactly how many shortcut keys there are can be frustrating. Most internet sources agree that there are 30 or so that every quick-witted typist should know, but one resource mentions 68 shortcuts! For instance, did you know that Ctrl+Shift+> will Increase a selected font +1pts up to 12pt and then increase font +2pts? Well, now you know.
  3. LAN is short for Local Area Network, which is described as a network consisting of “a series of computers linked together to form a network in a circumscribed location”. The computers in a LAN connect to each other via TCP/IP ethernet or Wi-Fi. A LAN is normally exclusive to an organization, such as a school, office, association, or church. The first commercial LAN was installed by Datapoint Corporation at Chase Manhattan Bank in New York in 1977.