Where were you on Jan. 1, 1984? Part 2

To stimulate your long-term memory, we’ll finish our “post-divestiture trivia quiz” this time with another 10 questions about the history of AT&T and the telecom industry.

Again, we plan to tally the results and report on who did really well, so send your answers by Jan. 15 to joanie@jwexler.com. We’ll let you know how you did and post the results so you’re not staying awake too many nights with an answer on the tip of your tongue.

11) What was the name of the final document that stipulated the rules governing the divestiture of AT&T?

12) What company did AT&T notoriously acquire in 1991 in an attempt to become a leader in the computing industry?

13) What’s the common word, a trademark of AT&T in pre-divestiture days, used to describe the technical term “dual tone multi frequency” (DMTF) signaling? (Hint: there was a jingle that went with the term used in commercial advertising circa 1970.)

14) What was the type of device that preceded modems for transmitting data to another computer remotely? (Hint: It attached to a phone handset.)

15) What were the two viciously competing 56K bit/sec modem “standards” circa 1996? What was the name of the merged, compromise standard?

16) Which AT&T president resigned after less than a year in office, taking with him separation payments of nearly $4 million, plus $22 million provided to replace salary, pension and bonuses forfeited from his previous job?

17) What was Unix International and AT&T’s role in it?

18) What was the name of AT&T’s satellite business? What happened to it?

19) Name two network types that use dual, counter-rotating rings for built-in disaster recovery.

20) What are the two definitions of the term “codec” and what function does each general type perform?