The Great Geek Manual

1449
The first English patent is granted to John of Utynam for the production of colored glass. King Henry VI grants the exclusive privilege for a period of twenty years, during which no English subjects imitate the manufacturing process with John of Utynam’s consent.

1776
Harvard College conferred the first honorary Doctor of Laws degree to George Washington.

1829
James Carrington of Wallingford, Connecticut, patents the coffee mill.

1860
The Pony Express begins mail service between Saint Joseph, Missouri, and Sacramento, California, with a pledge to “deliver the goods in ten days or less” at a price of US$5 an ounce per package. The Pony Express is the United States’ first high speed message system, but it will be put out of business just two years later by the proliferation of the telegraph.

1953
Following the acquisition of the Chicago, Illinois-based TV Forecast and similar television publications in New York, Philadelphia, and Washington D.C., Walter Annenberg publishes the TV Guide for the first time. The first issue features a photo of Lucille Ball’s second child, Desiderio Alberto Arnaz IV, on the cover. Within the first year of the national magazine’s first publication, its circulation will exceed 1.5 million readers. Visit the official TV Guide website.

1965
SNAP 10A, the first spacecraft powered by a nuclear reactor, is launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, in California. SNAP stands for Systems for Nuclear Auxiliary Power. It is activated by a signal from scientists on Earth about four hours after its launch, and once active, it generates five hundred kilowatt-hours of power over the course of its life, providing electrical power for a one kilogram-force (kgf) ion engine. The orbiting reactor will deactivate prematurely due to an electrical failure after just forty-five days into operations, falling far short of generating the intended ten thousand kilowatt-hours of power of previous ground models.

1966
The Soviet space probe Luna 10, the first spacecraft to orbit the Moon enters lunar orbit, and completes its first orbit three hours later. It was launched by the USSR from an Earth orbiting platform on March 31, 1966. The scientific instruments on board include a gamma-ray spectrometer, meteorite detector, and triaxial magnetometer. The spacecraft is also equipped with instruments to investigate gravity, infrared emissions from the Moon, radiation conditions of the lunar environment solar-plasma. It is battery powered, and it will operate for 460 lunar orbits before deactivating as planned on May 30, 1966.

1971
The field of biocybernetics begins when the Polish Akademia Górniczo-Hutnicza demonstrates the first artificial animal, an electronic dog. The device featured very elementary pattern recognition of two spoken Polish commands based on a biocybernetic model of the auditory system that imitated the functions of a simple neural network for sound pattern recognition using relays.

1972
Jon Postel creates the first Telnet specification in Request for Comment 318 (RFC 318), entitled “Ad hoc Telnet Protocol”. Read the full text of RFC 318. At the time of the posting, there is no official telnet protocol.

1973
The first portable cell phone call takes place in New York City. The call was placed by inventor Martin Cooper. The phone is ten inches tall, three inches deep, an inch and a half wide, and weighs thirty ounces. Cooper’s so-called ‘’shoebox” model will replace car phones that weigh more than thirty pounds and cost thousands of dollars.

1975
Bobby Fischer is stripped of his world chess title for refusing to defend it in a chess match against Anatoly Karpov. Karpov is awarded the title by default.

1982
Atari declares this day National Pac-Man Day when it introduces the game as a video game cartridge for the Atari 2600 Video Computer System (VCS) at the suggested selling price of US$44.95. The game will become the best-selling cartridge ever for the 2600. The Atari 2600 Video Computer System (VCS) version of PAC-MAN was written by Todd Fry. Some say this was the video game industry’s first brass ring for a programmer. Fry was given three months and, ultimately, a million dollars to generate the 2600 code for the game. Sales will fall off nearly as quickly as they had topped the charts, however, due to relatively poor gameplay and visual quality.

Peter Bukowski, age 18, of South Holland, Illinois, suffers a heart attack caused by myocardial inflammation and dies while playing the arcade shooter Berzerk at the Friar Tuck game room in River Oaks Shopping Center in Calumet City, Illinois. He will become known as the first person to have died while playing a video game. Dr. Robert Eliot of the University of Nebraska will later release a study theorizing that video games can be hazardous to people susceptible to heart disease in which this incident will be prominently featured.

1983
According to Twin Galaxies, Mark Robichek scores a record-setting 1,004,980 points playing the Konamiarcade game Tutankham at the Golfland in Milpitas, California. Visit the official Twin Galaxies website.

1984
Soyuz T-11 carries three cosmonauts and Rakesh Sharma, the first Indian astronaut, to the Salyut 7 space station.

1986
International Business Machines (IBM) unveils the PC Convertible, the company’s first laptop computer. It features an 4.77MHz Intel 80c88, 256KB of RAM (expandable to 512KB), a 640 x 20 monochrome CGA-compatible LCD screen, and dual 720KB 3.5″ floppy drives, and a built-in carrying handle. The PC Convertible has room for an internal modem, but no room for a hard drive. As such, it is the first IBM computer to feature standard 3.5″ floppy disk drives. Visit the official IBM website. Price: US$2,000 Weight: 13lbs

Version 1.0 of the Unicos operating system is released by Cray.

1989
Compaq introduces the Compaq Deskpro 286e computer in the US, featuring 1MB RAM, five expansion slots, VGA graphics, and a mouse port. Price: US$2,699 – US$3,599

The Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Time Squared” first airs. (No. 213) In it, the Enterprise encounters future version of Picard when it encounters a time loop. Memory Alpha entry

1991
Del Rey publishes the fantasy novel The Seeress of Kell by David Eddings as a hardcover. (ISBN-13: 978-0345330062) It is the fifth book in The Malloreon. Length: 399 pages

1992
A United States District Court rules that Accolade infringed upon Sega Enterprises copyrights in the creation of new games in the proprietary Sega Genesis video game cartridge format for Sega Mega-Drive consoles. Accolade had reverse-engineer Sega cartridges to learn how to make games for the company’s systems, then passed the information on to its developers, who produce the puzzle game Ishido, to compete with Sega’s games. The ruling is a landmark case in copyright law, effectively making the reverse-engineering or the disassembly of computer programs illegal. However, subsequent appellate courts will reverse the decision, holding that where reverse engineering is the “only means of gaining access to… unprotected aspects of the program,” such copying is a fair use. Read the full court ruling at Digital Law Online.

1994
Version 1.0.6 of the Linux operating system is released.

1996
Theodore Kaczynski is arrested on charges of perpetrating a seventeen year campaign of domestic terrorism under the persona dubbed the “Unabomber” by the media. Kaczynski is a self-proclaimed anarchist who argues that his tactics are necessary to draw the public’s attention to the erosion of individual freedoms caused by the proliferation of modern technology since the Industrial Revolution. On April 24, 1995, the Unibomber made headlines when he submitted his anti-technology manifesto to The New York Times for publication. He will plead guilty to all charges on January 22, 1998. Read Industrial Society and Its Future, “the Unabomber manifesto”.

1998
Lee Giles and Steve Lawrence of the NEC Research Institute in Princeton, New Jersey release the findings of a new report which reveals that the World Wide Web contains approximately 320 million pages of information and that existing search engines index only a fraction of them. Visit the official NEC Research Institute website.

New Line Cinema releases the science fiction film Lost in Space, directed Stephen Hopkins and starring William Hurt, Mimi Rogers, Matt LeBlanc, Gary Oldman, Lacey Chabert, and Heather Graham, to 3,306 US theaters. The film is an adaptation of the classic sci-fi series of the sixties, Lost In Space. Produced on a budget of US$80 million, it will gross US$20,154,919 domestically in its opening weekend. IMDB listing MPAA Rating: PG-13 Running Time: 2 hrs 10 mins

Nintendo admits that it has again pushed back plans to release its 64DD storage peripheral device for the Nintendo 64. Visit the official Nintendo website.

Universal Studios releases the action thriller Mercury Rising, directed by Harold Becker and starring Bruce Willis, Alec Baldwin, and Miko Hughes, to 2,386 US theaters. In the film, an autistic boy who deciphers a top-secret cryptographic code created by the National Security Agency, making himself the target of government assassins. It will gross US$10,104,715 domestically in its opening weekend. IMDB listing MPAA Rating: R Running Time: 1 hr 48 mins

2000
Electronic Arts (EA) releases the expansion pack Ultima Online: Renaissance for the massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) Ultima Online for Windows. Visit the game’s official website. ESRB: T (Teen)

Electronic Boutique (EB) announces an intention to acquire Funcoland for US$17.50 per share, a total of approximately US$110 million. Joseph Firestone, President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of EB will lead both companies. Visit the official Electronic Boutique website.

In the case of United States v. Microsoft, US District Court Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson issues a forty-three page Conclusions of Law, ruling that Microsoft acted illegally to protect its operating system monopoly and used its monopoly position by keeping “an oppressive thumb” on its competitors in an attempt to monopolize the web browser market. CEO Bill Gates, who looses nearly twelve billion dollars of net worth as the company’s stock price drops fifteen percent from its value at the end of trading the previous day’s trading, publicly states that the company will appeal the ruling. Analysts predict that, pending Microsoft’s imminent appeal, the case could be tied up in courts for another twenty years. By the close of trading, concern over Microsoft drive the NASDAQ composite index down 349 points. Read Jackson’s Conclusions of Law online at Harvard.

2001
Del Rey releases the science fiction novel The Skies Of Pern by Anne Mccaffrey as a hardcover. (ISBN-13: 978-0345434685) It is a book in the Dragonriders of Pern series. Visit the author’s official website. Length: 384 pages

2002
NASA scientist Friedemann Freund announces that geological studies have confirmed that there are sufficient levels of hydrogen-based nutrients available to communities of Archaea surviving deep within the rock of our planet without sunlight or organic food to indicate that such microorganisms might exist elsewhere in space.

Sharp Electronics releases the Zaurus SL-5500 handheld computer in the US, featuring the Lineo Linux operating system, an Intel 206MHz StrongARM processor, 64MB RAM, a CompactFlash slot, a Secure Digital slot, a 320×240 pixel resolution 16-bit color screen, a keyboard, and a lithium-ion battery. Price: US$500 Weight: 6.8 ounces

The Star Trek: Enterprise episode “Oasis” first airs. (No. 120) In it, Archer, T’Pol, Trip and Travis discover survivors on a ship that crash-landed years ago. Memory Alpha entry

2004
Majesco releases the scrolling shooter Blast Works: Build, Trade, Destroy for personal computers. Visit the game’s official website.

Version 4.2.1 of the Self programming language is released. Self is an object-oriented programming language based on the concept of prototypes. The language was primarily used as an experimental test system for language design in the eighties and nineties; however, its development is on-going. Visit the official Self website.

2006
“Crazy” by Gnarls Barkley becomes the first song to top the British singles chart based solely on computer download sales on the very first day of its release to traditional brick-and-mortar stores across the UK. The album, St. Elsewhere, which featured the track, had been made available as a download a week prior to hard copies and sold over thirty-one thousand copies. The strength of its sales despite being leaked in late 2005 woke many in the music industry up to the potential of internet sales.

Google launches Google Related Links, a service that allows webmasters to include dynamic content relevant to their website from Google on their websites automatically.

Microsoft announces that it has agreed to acquire the ProClarity Corporation, a software developer. Visit the official ProClarity website.

2007
The open source blogging engine Habari is first released. Habari is a community developed engine written in PHP that runs on web servers as a blog platform. Visit the official Habari website.

Roc Books publishes the urban fantasy White Night by Jim Butcher as a hardcover. (ISBN-13: 9780451461407) It is the ninth book in The Dresden Files series. Visit the author’s official website. Length: 407 pages

Sony Computer Entertainment (SOE) reduces the price of the PlayStation Portable (PSP) from US$199.99 to US$169.99. Visit the official PSP website.

2008
Jules Verne (ATV-001), the first European Automated Transfer Vehicle, successfully performs a fully automated docking with the International Space Station (ISS) on a mission to supply the station with propellant, water, air, and dry cargo. Visit the official Jules Verne website.

2009
Roadside Attractions releases the science fiction comedy Alien Trespass, directed by R.W. Goodwin and starring Eric McCormack, Jenni Baird, Robert Patrick, Jody Thompson, and Dan Lauria, to US theaters. IMDB listing MPAA Rating: PG Running Time: 1 hr 28 mins

In the journal Science, scientists from Aberystwyth University and the University of Cambridge publish an article announcing the creation of a “Robot Scientist” which they believe is the first machine to have independently discovered new scientific knowledge. The robot, which they have named Adam, is features a computer system that fully automates the scientific process without the need for human intervention. The article discusses the robot’s first discovery, a simple but new scientific knowledge regarding the genomics of the baker’s yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, an organism that scientists use to model more complex life systems. Researchers at both Aberystwyth University and the University of Cambridge validated Adam’s own discovery with separate, manual experiments.