Test your nerd knowledge: July 26, 2022
Here’s a review of this week’s questions:
- This video game console, released in 1988, was known as Mega Drive in Europe and Ozisoft in Australia. What was its name in the US?
- In tech parlance, what does RFC stand for?
- What “Interactive Services provider” was founded in 1969 in Columbus, Ohio?
And here are the answers:
- Sega Genesis. While Nintendo dominated the video game market from 1984 to 1989, the 16-bit Sega Genesis built on the middling success of its 8-bit console and eventually overtook Nintendo in 1991. The tipping point occurred when Sega’s American marketing team took over and the company began including the game, “Sonic the Hedgehog” with its consoles.
- Request for Comments. The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is a standard-setting body for the internet, and its publication of principal technical developments is referred to as a Request for Comments (RFC). The RFC system was invented in 1969 by UCLA professor Steve Crocker. Although they are generated and reviewed by IETF, anyone can submit a document to be an RFC. RFC’s are stored in convenient hyperlinked web indexes, which enable the creator to enter an RFC number and retrieve a copy of the RFC. Some include keyword search, global listing, and other capabilities.
- CompuServe. According to its website, which gives one the feeling that it is 2001, CompuServe boasts that, “With the launch of CompuServe 7.0 in 2001, CompuServe reached a new milestone by making the gathering of information and exploring the Internet faster, easier and more convenient than ever before for its worldwide membership.” The company, which became a wholly owned subsidiary of America Online in 1998, dominated the ISP world in the late ‘80’s and early ‘90’s. Starting with early dial-up technology connecting computers in Columbus and Cleveland, CompuServe modified and grew its business model, eventually becoming one of the “Big Three” information services, along with Prodigy and America Online, in 1994.