Posts Tagged ‘first’
Question Asked: What Was The First Video Game Ever Made?
Apparently this is a much debated question in the field of video games. Many people argue what defines an actual “video game”, so it’s quite unclear as to what the actual answer is.
However, according to a variety of sources, I’ve narrowed it down to two possibilities (depending on how you define what a video game is):
The earliest known interactive electronic game was created by Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle Ray Mann on a cathode ray tube in 1947. The game was a missile simulator inspired by radar displays from World War II. It used analog circuitry, not digital, to control the CRT beam and position a dot on the screen. Screen overlays were used for targets since graphics could not be drawn at the time.
The very first video game on record was a game called Tennis for Two. It was first introduced on October 18, 1958. Two people played the electronic tennis game with separate controllers that connected to an analog computer and used an oscilloscope for a screen. The game’s creator, William Higinbotham, was a nuclear physicist who had worked on the Manhattan Project and lobbied for nuclear nonproliferation as the first chair of the Federation of American Scientists.
So there you have it. The video game was either invented in 1947, or 1958, depending on what you classify as a video game.
Question Asked: What Was The First Domain Name Ever?
Great question. I’ve often wondered that myself, and just never went and tried to figure it out. The general consensus is that it was think.com, which according to some stats I’ve found, was the third domain name.
The first dot com (.com is what people think of, when they say domain name) was registered on March 15th, 1985; symbolics.com.
The website is still up, but doesn’t appear to be much these days. I guess after being around for 23+ years on the internet, your presence speaks for itself.
Some other really early on (and interesting) domains:
- bbn.com – 04.24.85
- think.com – 05.24.85
- xerox.com – 01.09.86
- hp.com – 03.03.86
- ibm.com – 03.19.86
- intel.com – 03.25.86
- boeing.com – 09.02.86
- adobe.com – 11.17.86
- apple.com – 02.19.87
- philips.com – 04.04.87
- lockheed.com – 07.27.87
- marble.com – 11.09.87
- cayman.com – 11.16.87
Question Asked: When Was the First Speeding Ticket Issued?
Great question, thanks for asking.
It took quite a bit of research to find the answer to this one, but I believe I’ve got a pretty solid answer here.
The year was 1904, the place was Dayton Ohio. The ticketed person was a man by the name of Harry Myers. He was cited for driving a blistering 12 miles per hour down West Third Street. You read that right, twelve miles per hour. People walk faster than that now.
This above, is the first recorded incident of a written paper speeding ticket. However, there were other offenses for speeding, before 1904.
May 20th, 1899 Jacob German (a New York City cab driver) was arrested for speeding. He was also driving 12 miles per hour, down Lexington street in Manhattan. He was imprisoned in the East 22nd Street station house. He didn’t have to surrender his registration and license, as those weren’t required by law until 1901 in New York.
Ironic that it was a New York cabbie, huh?
Just out of my own curiousity, I looked up what the fastest speeding ticket ever issued was (with or without arrest of the driver). All sources point to Texas in May of 2003. Supposedly the driver was going 242mph in a 75mph zone. The car he was driving was a Swedish-built Koenigsegg.
There’s no record of how much the fine was, but if you use today’s logic ($10 per MPH over the speed limit), the ticket would have been $1670. Doesn’t seem like such a big fine to be able to say you hold that record.