The Great Geek Manual

This Day in Geek History: August 30

30 Aug 2008 Geek History

1831
Charles Darwin replies to the letter from Reverend Henslow, telling him of the offer to sail on the HMS Beagle. Darwin had learned natural history from Henslow, who had recommended him for the unpaid position as a naturalist. Darwin told Henslow that his father would not permit him to leave on such a the voyage. Meanwhile, his father had written to his brother-in-law, Josiah Wedgwood II, about his concerns regarding the proposed two-year voyage.

Michael Faraday demonstrates the first electrical transformer.

1963
A new telephone hotline connecting the Pentagon in Washington D.C. and the Kremlin in Moscow is first activated and tested. It will provide a direct two-way communications channel between the American and Soviet governments in the event of an international crisis. The hotline is installed in the wake of the Cuban Missile Crisis, one year earlier. During the incident, messages sent between US President Kennedy and Soviet Premier Khrushchev required five or six hours each way for transcription, transmission, translation, and delivery. This new hotline could cut down the delays in sending messages from hours to minutes, but it will only be used for emergencies. It is modeled after an emergency command system used to connect seventy US Air Force bases around the world. It consists of one full-time duplex wire telegraph circuit, routed through Washington, London, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Helsinki, and Moscow, for the transmission of messages and one full-time duplex radiotelegraph circuit routed through Washington, Tangier, and Moscow used for service communications and for coordination of operations between the two terminal points. Teletype machines are used at each end of the ten thousand mile circuit, not telephones. A tape encryption system is used to keep messages secure. The hotline will be active twenty-four hours a day.

1969
The first prototype Interface Message Processor (IMP), sent by BBN , arrives at UCLA, and, within hours of its arrival, it and the Sigma 7 computer begin passing data back and forth. On September 2nd, it will be connected to the first host. BBN signed a one-year contract with ARPA to develop and deliver a backbone network of four IMP units, which were the first packet routers.

1974
The Astronomische Nederlandse Satelliet (”Astronomical Netherlands Satellite”), the first Dutch satellite, is launched from the Vandenberg Air Force Base, in the United States. ANS is an orbital X-ray and ultraviolet telescope.

1979
The Comet Howard-Koomen-Michels (SOLWIND I) becomes the first comet in recorded history to collide with the Sun. The event is recorded by coronographs taken on August 30th and 31st by satellite P78-1, which is monitoring solar corona activity, and it will be discovered in Septemebr 1981 by Russ Howard, who examines the coronographs. The impact produces the equivalent energy of one million hydrogen bombs.

1981
According to Twin Galaxies, John Bismuti scores a record-setting 4,111,000 points on Atari’s BattleZone after playing the game for four hours and fifty minutes at 4 Quarters arcade in Tumwater, Washington. Visit the official Twin Galaxies website.

1983
In the case of Apple Computer, Inc. v. Franklin Computer Corp., the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit overturns a United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania ruling and determines that computer software, specifically the Apple Computer Apple II operating system, can be protected by copyright under the Copyright Act of 1976 and that such protection does not depend on whether the software in question is object code or source code or on whether the software is an application or operating systems. The case was initially brought by Apple, after the company discovered that the Franklin Ace 100 clone of the Apple II contained a substantial amount of Apple’s original code, even to the point that it included a number of embedded comments, such as a Apple programmer’s name and the Applesoft branding. Franklin freely admitted using the code but argued that, because the software only existed in a machine-readable format rather than in print and did not contain copyright notices, it wasn’t protected by US copyright laws.

NASA Astronaut Guion S. Bluford Jr. becomes the first African American to go into space, aboard the third flight of the Space Shuttle Challenger on the eighth Space Shuttle Mission. This is also the first mission to launch and land at night. During ninety-eight orbits of the Earth over 145 hours, the crew will deploy the Indian National Satellite (INSAT-1B, operate the Canadian-built Remote Manipulator System with the Payload Flight Test Article, operated the Continuous Flow Electrophoresis System with live cell samples, and conduct medical measurements to better understand the biophysiological effects of space flight. The mission will land on September 5, 1983.

1984
The launch of the Space Shuttle Discovery on its first mission The Space Shuttle Discovery is launched on its first mission (STS-41-D). It will launch two communications satellites, including LEASAT F2 during the course of its mission. Visit the Shuttle’s official NASA website.

1991
Universal Pictures pictures releases the horror film Child’s Play 3, directed by Jack Bender and starring Brad Dourif as the voice of Chucky, Justin Whalin, and Perrey Reeves, to 2,12 US theaters. In it, the demented doll Chucky , who was left as a melted mess at the end of “Child’s Play 2,” is resurrected, and he begins searching for a new body to possess. He finds Andy, who he has stalked through the first two films, at a military school, where Chucky is soon running amuck. The film will gross US$5,718,940 domestically in its opening weekend. IMDB listing MPAA Rating: R Running Time: 1 hrs. 30 min.

1992
Microsoft releases version 3.0 of Microsoft Office, including: Word 2.0c, Excel 4.0a, PowerPoint 3.0, and Mail. It will later be repackaged as “Office 92.” Visit the software’s official website.

1994
International Business Machines (IBM) announces that it won’t oppose Microsoft’s attempt to trademark the name “Windows” for its operating system.

TSR Inc. releases the AD&D 2nd Edition Rules Supplement The Complete Druid’s Handbook by David Pulver. (ISBN-10: 156076886X) Length: 128 pages

1995
Del Rey publishes the fantasy novel The Secular Wizard by Christopher Stasheff as a papeerback. (ISBN-10: 0345388542) It is the fourth book in Stasheff’s Wizard in Rhyme series. The hardback edition was published in January. Length: 384 pages

Microsoft releases version 7.0 of Microsoft Office as “Microsoft Office 95.” The suite includes the first appearance of Word 7.0. It also includes Excel 5.0, PowerPoint 4.0, and Mail 3.2 from the Office 4.3. The suite coincides with the release of Windows 95, and it is the first 32-bit version of the suite. This suite is available in Standard and Professional versions. The Professional version includes Access in addition to the suite’s other applications. Visit the software’s official website.

Nintendo releases the fighting game Killer Instinct for the Super NES in the US.

1997
Version 1.0 of the online football management massively multiplayer online game (MMOG) Hattrick is released. Designed by Swedish programmer Björn Holmér, the game contains 118 different countries, each with its own league pyramid. By August 2007, the game will have over 960,000 users, each with their own team. Visit the game’s official website.

1999
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) releases the 500 MHz K6-2 processor. Visit the AMD K6-2 processors’ official website. Price: US$167 in 1000-unit quantities

Apple Computer unveils a new personal computer (PC) called the Power Mac G4 at the Seybold conference in San Francisco. It uses the PowerPC G4 (PPC74xx) series of microprocessors, and it has the ability to perform one billion operations per second and is up to twice as fast as the fastest Intel Pentium III computer.

Microsoft shuts down its Hotmail free email service for approximately two hours. The shut down comes after receiving confirmed reports that hackers have breached some of the service’s servers by entering Hotmail accounts through third-party Internet providers without using passwords.

Suddenly Press releases Best of the Rest 2: The Best Unknown Science Fiction and Fantasy of 1998 edited by Brian T. Youmans as a paperback. (ISBN-10: 0967005604) Length: 153 pages

“The United Loan Gunman” hacking group breaks into an ABC newscast.

2000
Activision releases the stealth action game Tenchu 2: Birth of the Stealth Assassins for the PlayStation in Japan. CERO: 15+

Capcom releases the shooting game Resident Evil: Survivor for the PlayStation in the US. The game was a major departure from the series, deviating from the third-person perspective of the previous games to a first-person view. The Japanese and PAL versions of the game, both of which were released earlier in the year, use of the Namco GunCon, a light gun that gave the game a more arcade feel. However, the American version doesn’t allow the use of a light gun. ESRB: M (Mature)

Swedish programmer Lars Aronsson founds Elektrosmog, a Stockholm-based discussion group on public wireless LANs. Around the same time, similar grassroots wireless networking groups pop up in London, Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco. Browse a list of wireless community networks by region.

2001
Artisan Entertainment releases the documentary Startup.com, directed by Jehane Noujaim and Chris Hegedus. The film examines the dot-com start-up phenomenon, following govWorks.com and its founders Kaleil Tuzman and Tom Herman in 1999 and 2000 as the Internet bubble burst. IMDB listing

The Gen Con UK 2001 game fair is held August 30 – September 2 at the Olympia 2 in London, England. Visit the event’s official website.

2002
Acclaim releases the puzzle game ZooCube for the Nintendo GameCube in Europe. ESRB: E (Everyone)

The documentary film Lost in La Mancha, directed by Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe and starring Jeff Bridges as the film’s narrator, Terry Gilliam, Johnny Depp, and Jean Rochefort, is released. The film documents director Terry Gilliam’s failed attempt to create the independent film The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, a movie adaptation of the novel Don Quixote. Visit the film’s official website.

The fan film The Jedi Hunter, directed by John E. Hudgens and starring Brian Boling, Heather Harris, and Jimmy Burns, debuts on the Internet. It is a spoof of Star Wars and The Crocodile Hunter, with Boba Fett playing the part of Steve Irwin, hunting Jedi along with his wife “Terri Fett”. Visit the film’s official website. Watch the film online at Atom films. IMDB listing Run Time: 8 min

University Of Chicago Press publishes Shared Fantasy: Role Playing Games as Social Worlds by Gary Alan Fine, a professor of sociology at Northwestern University, as a paperback. (ISBN-10: 0226249441) It is a republication of a classic study that still provides one of the most acute descriptions available of an often misunderstood subculture: that of fantasy role playing games like Dungeons & Dragons. Gary Alan Fine immerses himself in several different gaming systems, offering insightful details on the nature of the games and the patterns of interaction among players—as well as their reasons for playing. Read the book online at Google Books. Length: 298 pages

Version 4.5 of the Job Access With Speech (JAWS) screen reader program for visually impaired users is released for Windows. This version adds quick navigation keys to Internet Explorer, for navigating between HTML elements on a website. The software is produced by the Blind and Low Vision Group at Freedom Scientific of St. Petersburg, Florida. Its purpose is to make personal computers with Windows installed accessible to blind and visually impaired users. It accomplishes this by providing the user with access to the information displayed on the screen via text-to-speech or by means of a braille display and allows for more comprehensive keyboard interaction with the computer. Visit Freedom Scientific’s official website.

Warner Bros. releases the horror film FeardotCom, directed by William Malone and starring Stephen Dorff, Natascha McElhone, and Stephen Rea, to 2,550 US theaters. In the film, four people die mysteriously in New York City and the only connection is the fact that all of them died within forty-eight hours of logging on to “feardotcom.com”, a website depicting voyeuristic murders. Detective Mike Reilly teams up with Terry Huston, a Department of Health researcher, to uncover the cause behind the unexplained deaths. What they discover, though, may cost their own lives. Produced on a budget of US$40 million, the film will gross US$5,710,128 in its opening weekend. Visit the film’s official website. IMDB listing MPAA Rating: R Running Time: 1 hrs. 38 min.

2003
The MiMail email worm, written in the C programming language, first emerges. Read more at Symantec.

2004
Acclaim Entertainment, a leading American video game developer, files for Chapter 7 bankuptcy, with debt over US$100 million.

Nintendo releases the real-time strategy game Pikmin 2 for the Nintendo GameCube in North America. It is the sequel to the 2001 game Pikmin, but it will be considered an improvement over the original. In a review, CNET will report that it “addressed the bulk of the shortcomings of its predecessor by crafting a game that tops the original in nearly every way.” Visit the game’s official website. ESRB: E (Everyone)

Roxor Games releases the dancing game In the Groove to arcades.

Steve Jackson Games publishes GURPS Basic Set: Campaigns (4th Edition) by Steve Jackson, Sean Punch, and David Pulver as a hardcover. (ISBN-10: 1556347308) GURPS Basic Set: Campaigns combines information from the Third Edition GURPS Basic Set and GURPS Compendium II, plus the new core setting, with infinite possibilities for timeline-hopping adventure! It contains everything a GM needs to create and run a GURPS Fourth Edition campaign. Length: 240 pages

2005
Del Rey publishes the fantasy novel Tanequil by Terry Brooks as a paperback. (ISBN-10: 034543577X) It is the second book in the High Druid of Shannara series. In it, war threatens the Four Lands, and Shannara’s only hope lies in Penderrin Ohmsford, but it’s a dreadfully slim hope. To save his world, Pen must restore his aunt, the former Ilse Witch, to her rightful position as High Druid of Shannara. But first Pen must free his aunt Grianne from the Forbidding: the world of the demons. To have the slightest chance of freeing her, he must find the mystical tree called the Tanequil, and somehow craft a talisman from its wood. Length: 368 pages

Del Rey publishes the reference The World of Shannara by Terry Brooks and Teresa Patterson as a hardcover. (ISBN-10: 034548388X) The book is a guide to the people, dress, and events of Terry Brooks’ Shannara series. Length: 256 pages

Electronic Arts releases the expansion Ultima Online: Mondain’s Legacy for the Ultima Online massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG). It introduces a new race, elves, a new skill, spellweaving, and several dungeons. Visit the expansion’s official website. ESRB: Teen (formerly ESRB: Mature)

Galaxy Press releases the fantasy anthology L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future, Vol. 21 edited by Algis Budrys as a paperback. (ISBN-10: 1592122175) Length: 521 pages

Green Ronin Publishing publishes the Warhammer roleplaying guide Sigmar’s Heirs: A guide to the Empire by Green Ronin Staff as a hardcover. (ISBN-10: 1844162656) This supplement delves even further into the background of the Empire as laid out in the main rulebook. Useful for both players and Game Masters. The supplement contains a detailed geography, expanded history and in depth explanation of the politics and new empire centric careers. Length: 128 pages

Scientists led by Natalia Dubrovinskaia, at the University of Bayreuth in Germany publish research on the process by with they have created a material harder than diamond, long known to be the world’s hardest substance, by compressing carbon-60 molecules in the journal Applied Physics Letters. They dub the new form of carbon “aggregated diamond nanorods.” A material’s hardness is measured in terms of its isothermal bulk modulus, which is a measure of how a solid substance’s volume changes as pressure is applied to it at a constant temperature. Diamond has a modulus of 442 gigapascals, while is even less compressible with a modulus of 491 gigapascals.

The Star Trek novel Vulcan’s Soul Trilogy Book One: Exodus by Josepha Sherman and Susan Shwartz as a paperback. (ISBN-10: 0743463579) In it, the Romulan Star Empire comes under attack by a mysterious and alarmingly powerful enemy calling itself the Watraii, a species with a long-standing vendetta against the Romulans. Though they remain tenuously allied, the Federation, the Romulans, and the Klingons are unready to become embroiled in another sustained conflict, and Ambassador Spock, Admiral Uhura, Admiral Chekov, Captain Saavik, and some unexpected allies are forced to defy their governments in order to meet the new threat head-on. But the first blood drawn may prove to be among the dearest of all. Length: 304 pages

Tor Books publishes the science fiction novel The Battle of Corrin by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson as a paperback. (ISBN-10: 0765340798) It is the third book in the Legends of Dune trilogy. In it, the robotic forces of the Synchronized worlds try a new technique to wipe out their carbon-based enemies. A highly contagious plague is bio-engineered and covertly sent to several League planets, where it is released into the atmosphere. Within months, billions of humans are dead or dying. As medical experts rush to find a cure for the mysterious scourge, Omnius gathers together all of its robotic fleet — hundreds of thousands of warships — and, in a risky endgame move, launches them all at the League’s capital planet. Length: 704 pages

Wizards of the Coast publishes The Two Swords by R. A. Salvatore. (ISBN-10: 0786937904) It is the third book in The Hunter’s Blades Trilogy. The hardcover release of the book had the highest debut ever on The New York Times best seller list for a Salvatore title published by Wizards of the Coast, entering the list at the number four slot. The title stayed in the top twenty for five weeks. Length: 384 pages

2006
Bloomsbury releases Ruler of the Realm by Herbie Brennan as a hardcover. (ISBN-10: 1582348812) It is the third book in the Faerie Wars Chronicles Series. In it, Queen Holly Blue is kidnapped just as the kingdom is attempting to stave off war between the Faeries of the Night and the Faeries of the Light. Length: 432 pages

Checkmark Books publishes Encyclopedia of Fantasy And Horror Fiction by Don D’Ammassa as a paperback. (ISBN-10: 0816069247) It is an authoritative guide to the history and current state of fantasy and horror fiction, including entries on the major writers and works in the genres, a glossary of fantasy and horror terms, a bibliography of secondary sources, a list of the winners of major writing awards, and bibliographies for all writers discussed. The hardcover was published in February. Length: 488 pages

The first beta version of XNA Game Studio Express, a set of tools, complete with a managed runtime environment, that facilitates computer game design, development, and management, is released as a free download. The “express” edition of the software is intended for students, hobbyist, and independent game developers. It provides a basic “starter kit” for the rapid development of specific genres of games, such as platform, real-time strategy, and first-person shooters. Developers can us it to create Windows games for free with the XNA Framework, but its initial release doesn’t include a way of shipping precompiled binaries to other Xbox 360 players. To do that, users must pay an annual fee of US$99 or a four-month fee of US$49 for admission to the XNA “Creators Club.” Visit the application’s official website.

Konami’s 1982 classic arcade game Time Pilot is released for the Xbox 360 through Xbox Live Arcade. In it, the player assumes the role of a pilot of a futuristic fighter jet, trying to rescue fellow pilots trapped in different time eras. The player must fight off hordes of enemy craft and defeat the mother ship present in every level.

Namco Bandai releases Blood+: One Night Kiss for PlayStation 2 in Japan.

New Page Books publishes the fantasy novel Dragonlore: From the Archives of the Grey School of Wizardry by Ashley Dekirk as a paperback. (ISBN-10: 1564148688) Length: 222 pages

Tandberg Data, a Norwegian manufacturer of data storage products, announces that are buying the assets of the Exabyte Corporation, a manufacturer of magnetic tape data storage products, for US$28 million. The acquisition will be completed on November 20, 2006. Read the press release. Visit Tandber Data’s website.

Version 2006.1 of the Gentoo Linux operating system is released. Gentoo is a Linux distribution named after the Gentoo penguin and designed to be modular, portable, easy to maintain, flexible, and optimized for the user’s machine. All of the sytem’s tools and utilities are built from source cod, with the exception of a few large software packages available as precompiled binaries. Visit the system’s official website.

2007
The 65th World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon) and the 46th Annual Nihon SF Taikai, is held August 30 – September 3 at the Pacifico Yokohama Convention Center in Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. It is the first Worldcon held in Asia. Guests of honor include: Sakyo Komatsu, David Brin, Yoshitaka Amano, and Michael Whelan. Visit the event’s official English website.