The Great Geek Manual

1893
The first US patent for aerial photography is issued to Cornele B. Adams of Augusta, Georgia. (US No. 510,758) His method of photogrammetry can produce a topographic map by means of photographing the same tract of land from different points from an unmanned stationary balloon on a tether. “The pictures obtained can be converted into topographic maps, to delineate not only the horizontal positions and distances of the objects correctly, but from which the altitude of the objects can be quickly and accurately ascertained, and such results obtained without the aid of other field instruments.”

1896
Guglielmo Marconi gives the first public demonstration of his radio equipment at Toynbee Hall in East London. He is introduced and assisted by William Preece, chief electrician of the British Post Office. The event drew a large audience and considerable attention from the press. While Marconi taps the key on the transmitter, Preece carries the receiver box around the room, demonstrating that there are no wires, as the bell in the receiver rings each time Marconi closes the key.

1901
Guglielmo Marconi successfully transmits a Morse Code letter “S” via radio telegraph 2,137 miles across the Atlantic Ocean, from a 10kW station at Poldhu in Cornwall, England to Percy Wright Page in Signal Hill, St. John’s, Newfoundland at approximately 4:30 UTC. Such a connection won’t be established again for another ten years.

1903
The American Multigraph Sales Company of Cleveland, Ohio begins manufacturing the Multigraph duplicating machine, the first commercially successful device to simplify the printing process. It was patented on March 10, 1903 by inventor, Harry C. Gammeter, a typewriter salesman. Consisting of a metal drum with vertical channels running across it, it allows laymen to arrange moveable type with a retaining foot into the channels to roll out professionally lettered solicitation letters.

1911
The coronation durbar of King George V becomes the subject of the first major color film production, The Durbar at Delhi, shot in Kinemacolor.

1934
Rolf Möller of Fernseh AG applies for a German patent for a continuous film recording system to capture television images from the face of a cathode ray tube.

1937
NBC begins experiments with a mobile television unit in the streets of New York.

1949
A proposal made by Louis de Broglie recommending the creation of an European Institute of Nuclear Physics to match US atomic research is adopted at the European Cultural Conference, a four day meeting of one hundred fifty European leaders. The proposal will eventually lead to the establishment of the Centre Européenne de Recherche Nucléaire (CERN) laboratory on September 29, 1954.

1954
BBC Television transmits the landmark adaptation of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighy-Four in its regular Sunday night drama slot (20:35-22:35). It is the most expensive drama produced to date.

1955
Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft, files his first patent for a hovercraft.

1957
The General Electric Company announces the creation of Borazon, a boron nitride allotrope harder than diamond. The substance is created by heating equal quantities of boron and nitrogen at temperatures greater than 1800°C (3300°F) under 7GPa of pressure. The material was first produced by chemist Robert H. Wentorf, Jr.

1961
Oscar I (”Orbiting Satellite Carrying Amateur Radio”), the first satellite in orbit built by private citizens, is launched on a Thor-Agena rocket from the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The ten pound satellite is carried on the Discoverer XXXVI. Once in orbit, Oscar separates from the Discoverer and begins operating as a separate satellite, transmitting the message “HI” in morris code (four dots and two dots) ten times a minute for three weeks in the two meter band. The satellite was designed and hand-built by San Francisco Bay area radio amateurs, most of whom are associated with electronics firms. It will reenter the atmosphere on January 31, 1962 after making 312 orbits.

1968
Over-the-air subscription television (pay TV) is formally adopted by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) as a regular United States broadcast service.

1980
Oil tycoon Armand Hammer purchases the thirty-six sheet manuscript Codex Leicester by Leonardo daVinci at an auction at Christie’s in London for US$5.28 million, the highest price ever paid for a manuscript. Written from 1506 to 1510, the manuscript covers daVinci’s observations and theories a wide variety of topics, ranging from astronomy to hydrodynamics, all written in his signature mirror writing, as well as in more than three hundred pen-and-ink sketches.

Underwriters Morgan Stanley and Hambrecht & Quist take Apple Computer public in the most successful initial public offering (IPO) in the US since the Ford Motor IPO of 1956. The company sold 4.6 million shares at US$22 per share under the stock symbol “AAPL” on the NASDAQ market. The shares sell out almost instantly, and by the end of the day, the stock will increase in value by almost thirty-two percent to close at US$29, leaving the company with a market value of US$1.778 billion. More than forty of Apple’s one thousand employees and investors become instant millionaires. Steve Jobs, the largest shareholder, makes US$217 million dollars alone, while Mike Markkula makes US$203 million, an incomprehensible 220,700% return on their investment. Apple will not initially pay dividends on its common stock.

The United States Congress amends the Copyright Act to extend federal copyright protection to computer programs in the same manner as literary works.

1983
Dallos, the first-ever anime Original Video Animation (OVA) is released. In it, mankind has moved from a drained Earth to the Moon. Rebel acts of terrorism lead to conflicts with the Earth Federal Government. A mysterious entity called Dallos appears to restore hope. Running time: 30 minutes

1984
The original hard drive for FidoNet #1, the computer of Fido founder Tom Jennings, suffers a catastrophic failure, leaving the BBS running on two floppy drives.

1988
Atari Games files a lawsuit against Nintendo in US District Court in San Francisco, California, claiming Nintendo has used monopolistic and exclusionary business practices by placing security chips in the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) and game cartridges. Atari Games claims US$100 million in damages, and announces that they have developed a compatible security chip so that Atari Games and Tengen can compete with Nintendo in cartridge production.

The Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “The Outrageous Okona” first airs. (No. 204) The Enterprise encounters a flamboyant rogue on the run, while Data explores humor with the help of a holodeck comedian played by Joe Piscopo. Memory Alpha entry

1995
A ceremony is held in Thailand at which Monks pray for the success of a new Texas Instruments, Inc. computer chip plant that will be built there.

1997
NEC Home Electronics releases Ah! My Goddess for the NEC PC-FX.

1998
MicroProse releases the flight simulator Falcon 4.0 for Windows.

The webmaster of the Atari Historical Society website, Curt Vendel, receives a letter from Nolan Bushnell praising him for his dedication and work maintaining the Atari Historical Society website. “In many ways, it’s like a family album,” writes Bushnell.

2000
America Online (AOL) announces that it has achieved twenty-six million subscribers worldwide. Visit the company’s official website.

Intel reveals that it has created the smallest and fastest Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) transistor yet. It is thirty nanometers and three atomic layers thick. Intel claims it will enable microprocessors within the next ten years to contain more than four hundred million transistors and operate at ten Gigahertz (GHz) at less than one volt.

Season 2.0 of BattleBots premieres on Comedy Central. Visit the show’s official website.

2001
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) releases the 1600 MHz Athlon MP 1900+ processor, featuring a 256KB Level-2 Cache and a 266MHz Front-Side Bus.

2004
Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE) releases the PlayStation Portable (PSP) handheld video game system in Japan. It features a 333 MHz MIPS R4000 CPU, a Memory Stick port, a USB port, a Universal Media Disc (UMD) drive, 4.3-inch 16:9 ratio 480×272 pixel display, Wi-Fi wireless connectivity, a headphone jack, speaker. Batteries power the unit for about four hours. Two hundred thousand units of the device are initially made available, all of which will be sold out in the first two days. The device is available in one of two bundles. The basic package contains the console, battery, and AC adaptor for ¥20,790 including tax (US$193). The “Value Pack” contains the console, battery, AC adaptor, a 32MB Memory Stick Pro Duo, headphones with remote, slip-case, and wrist strap for ¥26,040 including tax (US$245).

2006
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) releases the 2800MHz Athlon 64 X2 5400+ (F3) processors, featuring two 512KB Level-2 Caches and 1000MHz HyperTransport.

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) releases the 2800MHz Athlon 64 X2 5600+ (F3) processors, featuring two 1024KB Level-2 Caches and 1000MHz HyperTransport.

Hewlett-Packard announces that it is acquiring Knightsbridge Solutions, a business data warehousing consultancy based out of Chicago, Illinois. Visit the company’s official website.

Acting Chancellor Norman Abrams of the University of California, Los Angeles announces that a hacker exploited a software flaw to gain unauthorized access to a database that contained the personal information, including social security numbers, of over eight hundred thousand people. The incident is believed to be one of the worst computer breaches in U.S. history.

Red Hat begins trading on the NYSE (New York Stock Exchange) under the symbol “RHT”, moving from the NASDAQ (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations) where it was initially traded after its initial public offering (IPO) on August 11, 1999. CFO Charlie Peters cites three reasons for the company’s move from the NASDAQ to the NYSE: increasing Red Hat’s visibility among investors, reducing trading volatility, and offering more efficient pricing. Visit the company’s official website.

Version 2.3 of Torrentflux, a multi-user GUI for BitTornado. Visit the application’s official website.

2007
Merriam-Webster Inc. announces that it has dubbed “w00t” the word of the year. The dictionary describes the word “w00t,” spelled with two zeroes, as an expression of joy coined by internet gamers. The word was selected by visitors to the Merriam-Webster website from twenty of the site’s most searched words and phrases.