The Great Geek Manual

1178 BC
Some link this day’s solar eclipse to the the legendary return of Odysseus, the King of Ithaca, to his kingdom after the Trojan War.

1947
The first zoom lens for a television camera is demonstrated by the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) in New York City. Prior to its invention, the entire camera had to be moved toward away from the subject of a shot in order to change the composition of the picture. The same effect can be accomplished using the Zoomar lens, revolutionizing live events like sports. The device was patented as a “varifocal lens for cameras” on November 23, 1948 by Dr. Frank Gerard Back of New York City. His company, Zoomar, will continue to develop lens technology well into the seventies.

1956
The first radio made to run off either batteries or a solar-cells is first sold in the US. The Sun Power Pak is manufactured by the Admiral Corporation, in Chicago, Illinois. By transistors instead of vacuum tubes, the radio requires so little electricity that six ordinary batteries power it for between 700 to 1,000 hours. The US$60 radio is small and weighs only five and a quarter pounds.

1959
Lisp, the programming language that provides the basis for most significant work in the field of artificial intelligence, is first unveiled. Created by John McCarthy, Lisp is the second high-level programming language to pass into mainstream use, after the FORTRAN programming language. It was designed to provide a practical mathematical notation for computer programming. It’s name is derived from “LISt Processing language”. Read more about the History of Lisp at Standford University.

The first version of The Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr. and E.B. White is first published. It was adapted by White from the work of his former Cornell University professor. The first edition will sell over two million copies.

1972
NASA launches Apollo 16 from Cape Canaveral, Florida on a mission to the Moon, where it will be the fifth mission to land on the surface and the first to land among the Moon’s highlands.

1975
Sony announces the launch of the Betamax videocassette format in Japan. The format uses 12.7mm width tape, derived from the professional 19.1mm U-matic format. The “Betamax” name comes from the fact that the tape looks like the Greek letter “Beta” when it runs through the transport. It will be launched in the US later in the year.

1976
The Helios-B deep-space probe passes within twenty-seven million miles (43 million km) or 0.3 AU of the Sun. It’s the closest any manmade probe has ever come to the Sun. The mission of the Helios-B is to measure the material found in space between Earth’s orbit and the Sun. The vehicle carries a fluxgate magnetometer to measure magnetic fields, for electric and magnetic wave experiments, charged particle experiments, and a micrometeoroid experiment.

1977
Just a few days after the company’s one year anniversary, Apple Computer introduces the Apple II, Apple’s first popular microcomputer, at the West Coast Computer Faire. The computer features a 6502 CPU, 4KB RAM, 16KB ROM, a built-in keyboard, an 8-slot motherboard, game paddles, a color display, and built-in BASIC. Initial models feature cassette tape drives, but later models will include 5¼-inch floppy disk. It stands out from its major competitors by being the first personal computer to feature color graphics, and it is also the first product to carry the soon-to-be-famous rainbow striped Apple logo. Many historians would later mark this release as the beginning of the popularity of the personal computer, as the Apple II would be the first computer to boast a “killer app,” Dan Bricklin’s VisiCalc spreadsheet software. Price: US$1,298

Commodore International unveils the Commodore PET 2001, Commodore’s first full-featured computer, at the West Coast Computer Faire. The PET (Personal Electronic Transactor) includes a MOS Technology 6502 processor, 4KB RAM, 14KB ROM, a built-in keyboard, a 9-inch monochrome display, and a cassette tape drive. The model on exhibition is a one of a kind prototype. Price: US$595

1981
The last episode of the science fiction television series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, “The Dorian Secret” first airs. (No. 213) The series ran for thirty-seven episodes. The series follows the adventures of a NASA pilot who is frozen for 504 years due to a life support malfunction and wakes up in the year 2491.

1987
Patents for genetic engineering are first authorized by the US government, the first nation in the world to do so. One year later, the first genetic patent will be issued in the US for a mouse designed to be highly susceptible to breast cancer. The so-called “oncomice” will be intended for use in testing anticancer therapies. Read the US government’s gene patent guidelines.

1989
Sunday, April 16, through Tuesday, April 18 the first Spring European Computer Trade Show (ECTS), organized by Database Exhibitions, is held at the Business Design Centre in London, England. The event is attended by 1,750 people. Noted exhibitors include Atari, Commodore, Electronic Arts, Elite, MicroProse, Mindscape, and Mirrorsoft.

1990
Nintendo files four copyright infringement suits in Canada and the US against retailers and distributors accused of selling counterfeit video game cartridges.

1991
Sunday, April 14, through Tuesday, April 16 the Spring European Computer Trade Show (ECTS) is held at Business Design Centre in London, England. The event is attended by 3,461 people.

1992
Apple Computer releases version 3.0 of the A/UX operating system of its Macintosh computers. The system is Apple’s implementation of the Unix operating system.

1996
Sunday, April 14, through Tuesday, April 16 the Spring European Computer Trade Show (ECTS) is held at Olympia in London, England. The event is attended by 9,827 people.

1997
Apple Computer reports a quarterly loss of US$708 million. The loss includes two significant one-time charges. The first for the acquisition of NeXt Software, Inc. for US$375 million and another US$155 million reserved for future restructuring costs.

Gateway 2000 announces plans to expand its manufacturing plant in Hampton, Virginia, adding three hundred employees to the present six hundred fifty. The project will increase the plant’s production capacity by fifty percent.

1998
Apple Computer reports a stronger-than-anticipated second quarter profit of US$55 million on US$1.4 billion in revenues. This makes the second sequential quarterly profit for Apple after two years of substantial losses.

1999
Michael Crichton, author of such novels as Disclosure and Jurassic Park, announces the formation of Timeline Studios. The company will focus on developing next-generation video games based on the stories written by Crichton and powered by technologies developed by Virtus Corporation of Cary, North Carolina. The first release for Timeline Studios is estimated to arrive in early 2000.

2000
Japan’s Kyodo news agency quotes industry sources as saying that Sony’s PlayStation 2 is the first video game console to face export controls under the Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Control Law because it is so sophisticated that it could be used for military purposes.

2001
The membership of America Online (AOL) surpasses twenty-nine million customers worldwide.

2002
Adobe Systems ships Photoshop 7.0 for Windows and Macintosh computers.

In the case of Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, the Supreme Court of the United States rules the Child Pornography Prevention Act (CPPA) of 1996 unconstitutional. The bill was designed to restrict child pornography on the internet. The bill is the first to encompass virtual child pornography and punish it with measures identical to that of real child pornography. The bill “bans a range of sexually explicit images, sometimes called “virtual child pornography,” that appear to depict minors but were produced by means other than using real children, such as through the use of youthful-looking adults or computer-imaging technology.”

2003
Corel releases the WordPerfect Office 11 software suite, including the WordPerfect word processor, Quattro spreadsheet, and Presentations slide-show software. Price: US$299 or US$149 for an upgrade

Intel releases the 2.5GHz Pentium 4-M processor, for portable computers. Price: US$562 in 1000-unit quantities

Intel releases the 2.2GHz Celeron processor, for low-price computers. Price: US$149 in 1000-unit quantities

Intel releases the 1.26GHz Celeron processor, for mininotebook computers. Price: US$107 in 1000-unit quantities

2004
Lions Gate Entertainment releases The Punisher, directed by Jonathan Hensleigh and starring Thomas Jane, John Travolta, and Rebecca Romijn, to 2,649 US theaters. The film is based on the Marvel Comics character, The Punisher. The film is received very poorly. Film critic Roger Ebert criticized the film, stating “The Punisher is so grim and cheerless, you wonder if even its hero gets any satisfaction from his accomplishments.” Other critics generally agreed, and the consensus among critics will be that the film is overly dark. Produced on a budget of US$15.5 million, it will gross US$13,834,527 domestically in its opening weekend. IMDB listing MPAA Rating: R Running Time: 1 hr 59 mins

Miramax Films releases the action film Kill Bill: Vol. 2, directed by Quentin Tarantino and starring Uma Thurman and David Carradine, is released to 2,971 theaters. Produced on a budget of US$30 million, it will gross US$25,104,949 domestically in its opening weekend. IMDB listing MPAA Rating: R Running Time: 2 hrs

2005
The science fiction television series Charlie Jade premieres on the Canadian Space Channel with the episode “The Big Bang”. (No. 101) The series will run for one season of twenty-episodes. The series centers around a corporation that plots to steal water from a parallel dimension and invade a third, and the detective who attempts to try to stop it from happening. Visit the official Charlie Jade website.

2006
Blizzard Entertainment finishes banning some 5,400 players from World of Warcraft and suspending 10,700 others for using third-party software to “farm” for items and, in some cases, selling in-game items for real-world money.

2007
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) student Seung-Hui Cho, age 23, shoots thirty-two people to death and injures twenty-three others before committing suicide in the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history. The incident will be dubbed as “Virginia Tech massacre.” The shooting, as with the Columbine High School massacre before it, raises questions over the link between video games and violence.

2008
Electronic Arts announces that The Sims franchise had shipped over one hundred million units worldwide, to make it the best-selling PC franchise in history. Visit the official Sims website.