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- Newsgroups: rec.humor
- Path: sparky!uunet!munnari.oz.au!spool.mu.edu!news.nd.edu!mentor.cc.purdue.edu!npirs!dheisler
- From: dheisler@CERIS.Purdue.EDU (Dave Heisler)
- Subject: Little known technological firsts
- Message-ID: <1992Dec28.180134.15576@CERIS.Purdue.EDU>
- Organization: Center for Environmental and Regulatory Information Systems, Purdue University
- References: <1992Dec28.164743.11960@cs.uwp.edu>
- Date: Mon, 28 Dec 1992 18:01:34 GMT
- Lines: 43
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- Little Known Famous Firsts in the History of Technology
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- Telephone tag - The first telephone tag occured in march
- 1927 when erza jones tried to order pork chops from the
- town butcher. When she called when he was with a customer, and
- he would always call back when she was in the basement checking on
- her preserves.
-
- Upgrade compatibility problem - Little known inventor R. S.
- Cardwell experienced upgrade compatibility problems when
- his electromagnetic computer failed after the local power
- company switched from direct current to alternating current.
- (june 1907)
-
- CPU Thrashing - This state where the CPU makes noise but
- doesn't accomplish anything was first observed by R. S.
- Cardwell. (see above)
-
- Battery backup - Inventor R. S. Cardwell first to use a
- battery ( from a car ) to rectify (sic) problems with
- his early computer. (july 1907)
-
- Accidental hard disk re-format - Rob Devas accidently reformatted
- his 5 meg hard drive on Feb. 9 1987.
-
- First use of Curse words and computer in same sentence - Robert
- Devas, 1987. (see above)
-
- Fax line confusion - Tingle Mays thought the company she was
- calling was having a new age concert on the hold circut, when
- she called the fax line by mistake in 1988.
-
- High density floppies - Discovered by gene sebies when he found
- two 3 1/2 diskettes would fit into his 5 1/4 drive. oct. 1989
-
- Data compression - Gene sebies performed the first attempt at
- data compression when he folded his 5.25 disk to fit in his
- 3 1/2 inch drive. oct. 1989
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- First firing of a person due to computer illiteracy - Even though
- a pioneer in the field Gene sebies was let go, in late oct, 1989
-