[krozet]

Originally Posted by scottyt

well nasa is the .gov they dont make a profit all they do is spend money, and i agree with it. computers where not invented for education, one reason gates and allen are not together still is they had different views. gates saw everyone making computers and little profit in it over the long run, so he did software which he just about gave away for 15 years. now he has the biggest chunk of the market.

it also said that nobel prize winner can right there own pay checks. once known they can make lots of money from the notoriety

Not to get off topic but when I see crap dressed up as fact I have to point it out.

During WWII Konrad Zuse invented the Z1. According to Mary Bellis, the Z1 was the first real functioning, binary computer (actually, it was a very large calculator--but a computer nonetheless!). Zuse used it to explore several ground-breaking technologies in calculator development: floating-point arithmetic, high-capacity memory and modules or relays operating on the yes/no principle. Zuse's ideas, not fully implemented in the Z1, succeeded more with each Z prototype.

In 1939, Zuse completed the Z2, the first fully functioning electro-mechanical computer. It was followed by the Z3. These machines were used to produce secret codes for the German military. For a while this gave the Germans a decided advantage. But then, the British, guided by mathematician Alan Turing, created the Colossus Mark I.

Colossus was the world's first programmable, digital electronic computer, developed in 1942-43 at "Station X", Bletchley Park, England. British code breakers used Colossus to read the encrypted German messages. The Germans didn't know their "Enigma" code had been broken. This is one reason the D-Day Invasion succeeded.

In 1939, John V. Atanasoff and Clifford Berry developed the Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC) at Iowa State University, which was regarded as the first electronic digital computer. The ABC was built by hand and the design used over 300 vacuum tubes and had capacitors fixed in a mechanically rotating drum for memory.

In 1945, ENIAC, created by J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly, was unveiled. ENIAC (Electronic Numerator Integrator Analyzer and Computer) weighed in at 27 tons and filled a large room. Not surprisingly, ENIAC also made big noises, cracking and buzzing while performing an equation of 5,000 additions. Before the invention of ENIAC, it took a room full of people to calculate a similar equation.

The first electronic computer that could store its own programs was developed in 1948 at Manchester University. It was called "The baby" and celebrated its 60th birthday in 2008. See BBC and Manchester University links in related links below. This is widely considered to be the forerunner of the modern computer.

The UNIVAC I (Universal Automatic Computer) was the first commercially available, "mass produced" electronic computer. It was manufactured by Remington Rand in the USA and was delivered to the US Census Bureau in June 1951. UNIVAC I used 5,200 vacuum tubes and consumed 125 kW of power. 46 machines were sold at more than $1 million each. By this time, computer design was limited primarily by the size and heat of vacuum tubes.

The vacuum tube was eventually replaced by the transistor. Shortly afterward, in 1959, the monolithic integrated circuit (now called the microchip) was invented by Jack Kilby at Texas Instruments in Dallas, Texas, and a few months later by Robert Noyce, of Fairchild Semiconductor in California. The two companies were embroiled in legal actions for years, but finally decided to cross-license their products. Kilby was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2000.

You might notice in there that nowhere is bill gates mentioned. bill gates found a way to mass market a tool that was getting cheaper and cheaper due to economics of scale and Moore's Law.

As for the crack about winning a Nobel Prize:

WARETOWN, N.J. - Anyone who has ever taken a digital photograph, uploaded a video to YouTube, or seen photos of distant objects in space knows George Smith's work.

Yet the unassuming retiree from a bayfront community in southern Ocean County was largely anonymous , until a caller with a Swedish accent left a message on his phone early Tuesday.

The 79-year-old former Bell Labs researcher won the Nobel Prize in physics along with a former co-worker for their 1969 invention. The device would become the eye of the digital camera, a sensor that transforms light into the tiny points of color that are the building blocks of every digital image.

"It does do wonders for one's ego," Smith said. "People obviously like taking pictures. Look at all the cell-phone cameras and cameras in your computer. That's using this technology."

Smith invented the device along with fellow Bell Labs researcher Willard Boyle, who now lives in Nova Scotia.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said their breakthrough, called a charge-coupled device or CCD, "revolutionized photography, as light could now be captured electronically instead of on film." It described the technology as having built on Albert Einstein's discovery of the photoelectric effect, for which he was awarded the Nobel physics prize in 1921.

Boyle, in a phone call to the academy, said he is reminded of his work with Smith "when I go around these days and see everybody using our little digital cameras, everywhere."

Their work also made possible the transmission of images of features of Mars like its red desert taken by digital cameras in space.

Before Tuesday's announcement, 11 Bell Labs researchers had already been awarded six Nobel prizes in physics for work done at the labs, which were founded in 1925 in New York.

Researchers there had a role in formulating the Big Bang theory, they developed the transistor, developed some of the earliest data networks and proposed the first cellular network.

Bell Labs President Jeong Kim said it was unusual but not unheard of that researchers would win this year's prize for work they did three decades ago.

"Proper recognition takes time," he said.

Smith was asleep in his home on a lagoon in Waretown, a boating and fishing community on Barnegat Bay, when the phone rang early Tuesday , at 5:43 a.m., to be precise. But he didn't get out of bed in time to answer the call, which went into voice mail.

"It was a message in a Swedish accent, so we knew something was up," said his wife, Janet Murphy said.

Smith rushed to the Web site of the Nobel committee and saw that the announcement was to be made momentarily. The phone rang again shortly with the good news.

Within a few hours, reporters were calling from all over the world: Germany, South America, Austria.

"I was elated," said the soft-spoken Smith, who said he and his wife have no exotic plans for the $250,000 he won as his share of the prize.

They sailed the world on their 35-foot sailboat Apogee, a voyage that took 17 years. It needs some repairs, but that's about it in terms of future expenditures.

"I'm very happy with what I have right here," Smith said. "We'll probably just do some very local sailing, up and down on Barnegat Bay. Right now, what I really want is a second cup of coffee."

The winners of the Nobel Peace Prize for the last 9 years:
# 2008 - Martti Ahtisaari
# 2007 - Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Al Gore
# 2006 - Muhammad Yunus, Grameen Bank
# 2005 - International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei
# 2004 - Wangari Maathai
# 2003 - Shirin Ebadi
# 2002 - Jimmy Carter
# 2001 - United Nations, Kofi Annan
# 2000 - Kim Dae-jung

The winner of Medicine and Physiology last year were a team of doctors that discovered the HIV virus decades ago...

I'm not going to bother pointing out how few Nobel winners did it to "Write there own ticket" as it take years to decades too get recognition.

Just stop throwing around fiction, not everyone is in it for the money and not everything was invented for profit.