1999
The Connectix Corporation announces that the San Francisco Federal District Court has rejected Sony’s request for a temporary injunction preventing the shipment of the Virtual Game Station, a PlayStation emulator for the Apple Macintosh. Visit an archived version of the Virtual Game Station website.
Hitachi announces that it will discontinue its personal computer manufacturer in the United States, merging its operations into Hitachi Data Systems. Visit the official Hitatchi website.
2000
EarthLink merges with MindSpring to become the second largest internet service provider (ISP) in the US, after America Online (AOL). Visit the official EarthLink website.
Electronic Arts (EA) announces releases the simulation game The Sims for personal computers in Brazil and the US. The game, somewhat reminiscent of David Crane’s Little Computer People for the Commodore 64, casts players in the role of God over a virtual community as they live out their lives. It lacks the objectives most games incorporate. Price: US$49.99
2001
Per Lidén and CRUX Linux community release version 0.5.2 of the CRUX Linux operating system. The Crux distribution is targeted at advanced Linux users. Visit the official Crux website.
2002
Jason Diekman, known by the handles “Dark Lord” or “Shadow Knight”, is sentenced to twenty-one months in federal prison, an additional three years of supervised release, restriction on his access to computers, and fines of over US$87,000 in restitution for intercepting of user names and passwords from a number universities, including Harvard, and admittedly hacking to “hundreds, maybe thousands” of computers, including systems at California State University at Fullerton, Cornell University, Harvard University, Stanford University, and University of California campuses in Los Angeles and San Diego.
2003
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) releases the 2,133MHz Athlon MP 2600+ processor, featuring a 256KB Level-2 Cache and a 266MHz Front Side Bus.
2004
Harvard University sophomore Mark Zuckerberg founds the social networking site Facebook using the domain “thefacebook.com”. Membership was originally intended for Harvard students. Within a month, over half of the college’s undergraduates had registered with the website. Zuckerberg’s roommate Dustin Moskovitz explains in a later interview with The Harvard Crimson “When Mark finished the site, he told a couple of friends. And then one of them suggested putting it on the Kirkland House online mailing list, which was, like, three hundred people. And, once they did that, several dozen people joined, and then they were telling people at the other houses. By the end of the night, we were, like, actively watching the registration process. Within twenty-four hours, we had somewhere between twelve hundred and fifteen hundred registrants.” In March, the service was expanded to include Columbia, Stanford, and Yale students as well.
The Star Trek: Enterprise episode “Stratagem” first airs. (No. 314) In it, Archer uses a daring gambit to try to trick the scientist behind the Xindi superweapon into revealing the weapon’s location. Memory Alpha entry
The upgrade of Abiline, the Internet2 backbone, from 2.5Gbps to 10Gbps is completed.
Version 6.5.23 of the IRIX operating system is released. Visit the official IRIX website.
2005
The Star Trek: Enterprise episode “United” first airs. (No. 413) In it, Archer struggles to unite the Andorians and Tellarites races before Romulan raiders destabilize the region. Memory Alpha entry
2007
Version 2.6.20 of the Linux operating system is released. Visit the official Linux website.
2008
Intel announces the creation of the first microchip to contain more than two billion transistors. The processor, one of Intel’s Itanium line, features four cores, 30MB of cache, and speeds of up to 2GHz. Intel will demonstrate the chip at the International Solid State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) in San Francisco later in the week. Code-name: Tukwila
Microsoft releases Windows Vista SP1 (RTM) to manufacturers for a five-month beta test. However, the service pack will cause some computers to continually reboot, in a cycle.
Microsoft releases Windows Server 2008 (RTM) to manufacturers. Visit the official Windows Server 2008 website.
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