1. What is the difference between Celeron and Pentiumprocessors?

a. A Celeron is a Pentium with the math coprocessor turnedoff.
b.A Celeron is a Pentium that failed Intels final speed test.
c. A Celeron is a Pentium with less L2 cache.
d. The only difference is marketing and price.

The answer is c. Celeron chips have less L2 cache than aPentium; they are manufactured to run at a slower clock speed (butthey can be over-clocked to run at Pentium speeds).

2. True or false: If you use a GIF file on your Website, you are liable to be charged $5,000 by Unisys for the use ofits LZW compression technology.

Falseprobably. Unisys did raise a bit of a fuss with CompuServeback in 1999 over its use of GIFs created using LZW. And that hasgiven rise to a wealth of geek mythology about the whole thing. Butif you post a GIF created with a reputable piece of software,chances are the manufacturer of that software has paid Unisys itsjust rewards. This issue has created much controversy in the freesoftware community.

3. What will this expression return <PRINTPEEK(1400)>?

The numeric value (0-254) of the memory at memory location 1400.You can change that value by using the POKE command. <POKE 1400,100>. Surely you have spent some time honing your skills on anApple IIC or similar device?

4. What does the acronym HIPAA stand for?

HIPAA is the acronym for the Health Insurance Portability andAccountability Act of 1996. OK, it has nothing to do withtechnology, but you do work for an insurance company, dont you?

5. What major software vendor is forcing corporateAmerica to violate the if it works, dont fix it rule?

Microsoftby discontinuing support for NT4 Server, it is forcingusers to migrate to Windows 2000 Server (or .NET, as 2000 supportwill be next to fall). Not good.

6. What is Smalltalk?

a. A modem handshaking protocol.
b. An object-oriented programming language.
c. A scripting language not unlike Perl.
d. What Oprah excels at.

Smalltalk is a programming language that was designed from theground up for object programming. When it was developed (in the1970s by Alan Kay at Xerox), existing computer languages weresyntactically procedural.

7. When you set your computer screen to a resolution of800 X 600, what property are you setting? What does itmean?

a. Dots per inch
b. Pixels
c. Dot pitch
d. Bitmaps per inch

Pixels, but its not that easy. A pixel (from picture element) isa logical unit of programmable color. The dot pitch is a physicalmeasurement (in millimeters) and the smallest physical unitavailable for a given monitor. If you set the resolution to themaximum supported by a particular monitor, then you will have aone-to-one mapping between pixels and dot pitch.

8. What was the Heathkit EC-1?

The EC-1 was an analog home computer sold as a kit in 1959 forless than $200. If you built Heathkits, you were way ahead of yourtime in geekness. Even cooler was only buying the manual fromHeathkit, then scavenging radio and television repair shops fordiscarded chassis and building your own from recovered parts.