Nerd

The term "nerd" comes from an original spelling "knurd." The term is originated at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in the late 1940s. Students who party and rarely study are called "drunks," while students who are always studying are known as "knurds" (drunks spelled backwards). The TV show Happy Days gives the phrase its national popularity.
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The year the World Wide Web

1993 is the year the World Wide Web makes its prolific debut. In January 1993, there are only fifty web servers in existence. By October 1993, the number of web servers increases to approximately 500. Through the entire year of 1993, web use grows at a 341,634% annual growth traffic rate. The Word Wide Web is here!
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WiFi

The IEEE publishes the 802.11 networking standard in 1997 as an over-the-air interface between a wireless client and an access point. As the standard is worked into computers and peripherals, its use begins to climb, especially as a home networking product. The 802.11-compatible standard is later dubbed "WiFi" which helps further market and popularize the wireless networking technology.
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The first spell checker

In order to cope with a personal shortcoming, Stanford University researcher Les Earnest develops the first automated spell checker in 1966. Stand-alone spell checker programs eventually appear for CP/M computers in the late 1970s, followed by packages for the IBM PC in 1981. By the mid 1980s, the spell checker is a common feature in word processing programs.
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The C language

Bell Labs engineers Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie develop the C language in the early 1970s. Thompson first develops the language "B" based on the Basic Combined Programming Language (BCPL) and is used in UNIX system development. Ritchie builds on B in 1973 to create a new language called "C," which inherits Thompson's taste for concise syntax, high-level functionality, and detailed features.
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Apache

The Apache web server is established in February 1995 when a small group of webmasters begin coordinating updates and patches to the public domain NCSA Web server program. The first public release of Apache is delivered in April 1995. The Apache Software Foundation is formed and the Apache web server subsequently becomes one of the most widely deployed web server products in the world.
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Simula

Ole-Johan Dahl and Kristen Nygaard develop Simula at the Norwegian Computing Center in the mid 1960s. Simula is designed to process complex and intensive data for ship simulations. It introduces many key concepts of object-oriented programming including objects and classes, inheritance, and virtual functions. Simula is used as the basis for Bjarne Stroustrup's development of the C++ language.
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Usenet

Usenet's roots go back to 1979 when the idea of sharing information and news within a community of computer users is realized by two graduate students. They develop conferencing software and connect computers at Duke and the University of North Carolina. Usenet grows and subsequently turns into a network that connects tens of thousands of sites around the world, from mainframes to PCs.
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Spam

The term "spam" is believed to be derived from the Spam sketch on the BBC comedy series Monty Python's Flying Circus. The sketch features a small restaurant in which every item on the menu includes Spam meat. With the commercialization of the Internet, the term was adopted to mean something excessive and undesirable (like the menu in the sketch) in the context of email and user group postings.
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FORTRAN

The FORTRAN programming language is developed at IBM in 1957. FORTRAN represents a major milestone in computing. The language provides a higher-level way to program, replacing machine and assembly code. FORTRAN catches on quickly as complex programming is done in hours instead of weeks. It is adopted by the scientific and military communities and is used extensively in the space program.
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Dbase

Jet Propulsion Laboratory programmer Jeb Long develops Dbase in the late 1970s. Long's file management program is written in FORTRAN and runs on a UNIVAC computer. A few years later, he works with Wayne Ratliff to create a PC version of the program, which they name Dbase. Dbase and subsequent releases become enormously popular, bringing database management to homes and small businesses.
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The Electric Pencil

Michael Shrayer develops a program that allows people to create, edit, store, retrieve and print documents on a personal computer. Completed in late 1976, his yearlong effort results in the first PC word processing program called The Electric Pencil. In 1979, Micropro International releases the first commercial descendant of The Electric Pencil, called WordStar.
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NLS

Douglas C. Engelbart and a group of Stanford Research Institute researchers demonstrate the online system NLS on December 9, 1968. Developing the project since 1962, NLS features such things as hypertext, object addressing and dynamic file linking, and an x-y display coordinate system. Those on hand also see the debut of the computer mouse.
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IBM PC

IBM sells its personal computing division to Lenovo Group on December 8, 2004. The deal makes China-based Lenovo the third-largest PC maker in the world, behind Dell and Hewlett-Packard. For IBM, the deal ends a twenty-five year run in the PC market but gives them a partnership with Lenovo, providing a franchise in the world's fastest, and soon to be largest, information technology market.
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Flight Simulator

Bruce Artwick's newly formed company named subLOGIC releases Flight Simulator for the Apple II in 1979. The first flights featured 2-D line grid landscapes and simple instrument gages. The game is licensed to Microsoft in 1982 and evolves into one of the best-known software programs serving a worldwide community of virtual pilots with add-ons and upgrades.
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RadioShack

Brothers Theodore and Milton Deutschmann open a one-store retail and mail order operation in downtown Boston in 1921. They choose the name RadioShack, which is a term for the small, wooden structure that houses a ship's radio equipment. The Deutschmanns think the name is appropriate for a store that will supply the needs of radio officers aboard ships, as well as ham radio operators.
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Robots

The 1921 play "Rossum's Universal Robots" introduces the word "robot" to the English language. Czech playwright, novelist, and essayist Karel Capek coins the term as derived from the Czech word robota, meaning work or serf. The word robot usually conjures up images of clanking metal contraptions, however the robots in Capek's story are human-like droids.
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MySQL

Finnish programmer Michael Widenius develops the open source database product MySQL in 1996. MySQL becomes a popular alternative to other commercial SQL products due to its open source code and that it can be downloaded for free. Over time, MySQL registers millions of users and records tens of thousands of daily downloads, becoming a serious competitor to commercial database management systems.
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Computer graphics

Boeing Corporation art director William Fetter coins the term "computer graphics" in 1960. Fetter uses the phrase to describe new graphic methods he is pursuing during his aircraft cockpit design. One of the most memorable early computer graphic images from Fetter's project is that of a human figure, often referred to as the "Boeing Man."
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