9: Bender’s Processor

A look inside Bender the robot’s head in the season 1 Futurama episode “Fry and the Slurm Factory” reveals that his hardware is based on some surprisingly archaic technology for the 31st century. The processor in Bender’s head has the number 6502. Computer experts will recognize this as the same 8-bit microprocessor created by MOS Technology in 1975, which Steve Wozniak used to build the first Apple II computer in 1977. The 6502 chip was also used in some of the earliest home computer and video game systems, including the Atari 2600, Commodore 64, and the first Nintendo Entertainment System.

3: A BASIC Joke

BASIC, the Beginner’s All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code, was a computer programming language created in 1963 by John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz at Dartmouth College. Their goal was to create a simple language that anyone could use to work with computers. A sign at the entrance of Bender and Fry’s apartment in Futurama season 1, episode 3, “I, Roommate,” is written in BASIC code, delivering the message “Home Sweet Home.”