So then, Brashear, Phil says this:
[Charset iso-8859-1 unsupported, filtering to ASCII...]
> Well, if it had been a Fortran, COBOL, Java, or C++ question of the same
> level, I think it would still be considered obscure by most contestants and
> audience members.  We're specialists in a pretty small area, relative to the
> world at large!  I think this was an appropriate high-value question, and
> would not have been appropriate at a low value (say $64K or less).
>
> I guess a similarly obscure COBOL question would have been "What was the
> highest military rank achieved by the primary developer of the COBOL
> language?"  I don't think your typical outstanding quiz-show contestant
> would know that offhand.
>
> Philip W. Brashear
> EDS Conformance Testing Center
> 4646 Needmore Road, Bin 46
> P.O. Box 24593
> Dayton, OH  45424-0593
> (937) 237-4510
> [log in to unmask]
> http://www.eds-conform.com
>

Although just about any Navy technical rating could answer that one...
In fact, I think I recall that one from several rating exams ;)
--
Scott Ingram
Sonar Processing and Analysis Laboratory
Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory