Miscellaneous Facts |
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| Author:
| unknown
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| Submitted: |
15-Sep-2002 14:09:22 |
| Imported From: |
zZine (original author: cyber00t)
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| This is a list of random facts about science, computers, and technology.
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1. Two decades ago designing an Operating System was considered a black art and still is. However, Prof. Andrew S. Tanenbaum educated the masses about Operating Systems.
2. Linus Torvalds got his inspiration for designing Linux from Tanenbaum (who designed Minix and Amoeba).
3. The X Windows GUI server (excluding the GUI code of Motif or Gnome) contains 1.5 Million lines of code.
4. FreeBSD1.0 contains only 235,000 lines of code; whereas 4BSD Lite, from which it is derived, has 743,000 lines of code. This is because Lite contains support for much obsolete architecture (e.g.. VAX).
5. Windows is designed by highly trained programmers that each work on a small piece of code, which is assigned to them. Nightly at 6:00 PM everyday, they submit it to the Build Team. The Build Team links and recompiles the code. The newest build is then given to thousands of people at Microsoft for testing. After testing, the bug reports are sent back to their respective designer. When Windows 2000 was released, its build number was 2195.
6. Until Windows 2000, which is a combination of the Windows NT architecture and Windows 98 GUI, all versions of Windows except for NT were made from 16-bit cores.
7. David Cutler, who made an OS for the VAX system, designed Windows NT.
8. Windows NT means ?New Technology?, while many people think of it as ?Networking?.
9. Robert Morris was the inventor of worms and buffer overflows, which now form the basis for many of today's computer security threats.
10. Windows 2000 is compatible with the Department of Defense C2 standard for Operating Systems.
11. Before Dos 1.0 and Windows, Microsoft sold UNIX products.
12. The first computer wasn't electrical, but mechanical.
13. FreeBSD kernel hackers say that Open Source is Richard Stallman's idea of ruling the world.
14. A fiber-optic communications device driver contains more code than an Operating System.
15. Windows 2000 contains 29 million lines of code, including the GUI. The GUI is included because it is a part of the kernel.
16. Before IBM changed its name in mid-1900's, it used to sell ice cream.
17. Linux programs often run faster on FreeBSD than Linux.
18. A quantum computer (if one were to actually be made) could crack today's best encryption in a matter of seconds.
19. Intel Pentium 4 processor's heat sink (fan on the processor) is nearly 4 times the volume of its processor.
20. Speech Synthesis and Speech Recognition are still in very primitive stages.
21. Lindows (Linux and Windows at www.lindows.com) is little more than the Debian Linux core and modified WINE (Windows Emulation).
22. In spite of all the complex equations and theories that Albert Einstein gave to this world, he said that "Everything should be as simple as possible, but not simpler"
23. The air inside your living room is more polluted than the air in a busy street.
24. Your computer's Hard Disk is nearly 1000 times slower than your memory modules.
25. The C Programming language is very popular because it was mainly designed for system programming (designing Unix); it has support for different target architectures and later adopted as a general purpose language. After standardization, it became even more popular.
26. There are still many UNIX clones that are not compatible with the POSIX standards.
27. ?Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write your code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition not smart enough to debug it.? -- Brian Kernighan.
That's it guys! I'll be back with more interesting facts in the next edition of this article. If you have any interesting facts, please e-mail them to me at: revanthn@logical-security.com
cyberr00t
Sources: Books by Andrew S. Tanenbaum and the Internet
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