astronomy

Trojan Room coffee pot

Trojan Room coffee pot is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Trojan Room coffee pot rather than just read about it. In short: The Trojan Room coffee pot was a coffee machine located in the Computer Laboratory of the University of Cambridge, England. It was the subject of the world's first webcam, created by Quentin Stafford-Fraser and Paul Jardetzky in 1991.

Key takeaways

Trojan Room coffee pot belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Trojan Room coffee pot to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Trojan Room coffee pot from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Trojan Room coffee pot was a coffee machine located in the Computer Laboratory of the University of Cambridge, England. It was the subject of the world's first webcam, created by Quentin Stafford-Fraser and Paul Jardetzky in 1991. To save people working in the building the disappointment of finding the coffee machine empty after making the trip to the room, a camera was set up providing a live picture of the coffee pot to all desktop computers on the office network. After the camera was connected to the Internet a few years later, the coffee pot gained international renown as a feature of the fledgling World Wide Web, until being retired in 2001.

Development The 128×128 px greyscale camera was connected to the laboratory's local network through a video capture card fitted on an Acorn Archimedes computer. Researcher Quentin Stafford-Fraser wrote the client software, dubbed XCoffee and employing the X Window System protocol, while his colleague Paul Jardetzky wrote the server program. In 1993, web browsers gained the ability to display images; it soon became clear that this would be an easier way to make the picture available to users. The camera was connected to the Internet and the live picture became available via HTTP in November of the same year, by computer scientists Daniel Gordon and Martyn Johnson. It therefore became visible worldwide and grew into a popular landmark of the early web.

Retirement

Following the laboratory's move to its current premises in the William Gates Building, the camera was eventually switched off, at 09:54 UTC on 22 August 2001. Coverage of the shutdown included front-page mentions in The Times and The Washington Post, as well as articles in The Guardian and Wired. The last of the four or five coffee machines seen online, a Krups, was auctioned on eBay for £3,350 according to the German news website Der Spiegel. The pot was later refurbished pro bono by Krups employees, and was switched on again in the magazine's editorial office. Since the summer of 2016, the coffee maker is on permanent loan to the Heinz Nixdorf MuseumsForum in Paderborn.

Legacy and cultural references Spoofs of the Trojan Room coffee machine ranged from the Hyper Text Coffee Pot Control Protocol, a 1998 April Fools' Day specification for a communication protocol, to the 2002 video game Hitman 2: Silent Assassin, in which the player can destroy a "coffee camera" in a kitchen as a distraction. The coffee pot was also mentioned in the BBC Radio 4 drama The Archers on 24 February 2005.

References

Further reading Stafford-Fraser, Quentin (July 2001). "On site: The life and times of the first Web Cam". Communications of the ACM. 44 (7): 25–26. doi:10.1145/379300.379327. S2CID 10863405.

External links Trojan Room Coffee Machine original website Heinz Nixdorf Museum Paderborn - CoffeeCam Live View

Illustrations

Trojan Room coffee pot: The coffee pot, as displayed in XCoffee — The coffee pot, as displayed in XCoffee

Trojan Room coffee pot: The last picture that the webcam ever took, showing three fingers about to switch the server off. — The last picture that the webcam ever took, showing three fingers about to switch the server off.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Trojan Room coffee pot

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Trojan Room coffee pot claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Trojan Room coffee pot before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Trojan Room coffee pot ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Trojan Room coffee pot

In research: Trojan Room coffee pot appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Trojan Room coffee pot in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Trojan Room coffee pot is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1991 establishments in England, 2001 disestablishments in England, British websites, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Trojan Room coffee pot outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Trojan Room coffee pot in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Trojan Room coffee pot means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Trojan Room coffee pot out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Trojan Room coffee pot in simple terms?

Why does Trojan Room coffee pot matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Trojan Room coffee pot?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Trojan Room coffee pot.