From the Stevens Point Journal April 9, 2008:

Technology changes the game in Trivia competition

The world's largest trivia contest doesn't just happen overnight.

(Strictly speaking, it happens during two nights and the better part of three days.)

But Trivia is also the result of decades of fine-tuning. Here are a few of the watershed moments in Trivia's history -- the kinds of moments that changed the way the game was played.

Phone burner

If you have the gumption or ingenuity to find the answer to a Trivia question this weekend, you'll probably want to call the answer in to the radio station. You'll pick up the phone, wait for it to ring, tell the answer to a sleepy college student, and then try not to collapse into the big bowl of microwave popcorn.

But it wasn't always that way.

Mike Wiza of the "Franklin Street Burnouts" remembers the days when he would have to call in answers on his kitchen rotary phone. In fact, Wiza says there were times during Trivia weekends past when you couldn't get a dial tone in the city because of the glut of Trivia teams trying to phone in an answer. Hence the term "phone burner," a name for a question that was so easy it was guaranteed to tie up the city's phone lines.

An automated city phone system, however, opened up phone lines and allowed for teams to answer questions quickly and efficiently, making it that much less likely they'll burn the frozen pizza.

Oz and the Internet

Video killed the radio star, yes, but did the Internet kill Trivia?

"In the older days before computers ... we had a library with over a thousand books -- atlases, all the updated almanacs, anything that had information," said Gerry Steltenpohl, a Trivia veteran. "Now, it's more, you walk in the house, you look around and it's like eight people on laptops, three people on PCs. There used to be a lot more interaction."

Trivia in the pre-Google age was a different story, argue purists like Steltenpohl, and it's easy to see why. But for most Trivia-goers, the golden age is far from over. Jim "Oz" Oliva, Trivia master, says not everything can be found on the Internet.

"If you can simply come up with a question that is so baffling that you have no clue of where to look ... and the Internet gives you an idea ... and then you dig through books and notes," said Oliva, "those are the best questions."