The Great Geek Manual

1595
Many historians believe that this is the date the William Shakespeare play Romeo and Juliet is first performed.

1802
John J. Beckley became the first Librarian of the U.S. Congress. Visit the official website of the Library of Congress.

1845
Edgar Allen Poe’s poem The Raven is published in the New York Evening Mirror for the first time anywhere.

1957
General Electric (GE) and the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) meet to select a format for ERMA Magnetic Ink Character Recognition (MICR) encoding on checks. The ERMA or Electronic Recording Machine – Accounting, is a system commissioned by the Bank of America, to move towards automating check handling. International Business Machines (IBM) makes a strong case for placing the encoding along the top of a checks, but GE and SRI had conducted a series of tests that demonstrated the advantage of placing the encoding along the bottom of checks.

1959
American Airlines begins offering the first jet passenger service across the United States with a fleet of Boeing 707 aircraft. Visit the official website of American Airlines.

1964
Columbia Pictures releases the comedy Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, directed by Stanley Kubrick and starring Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden, Keenan Wynn, Slim Pickens, Peter Bull, James Earl Jones, and Tracy Reed, to US theaters. The film, which is loosely based on the novel Red Alert by Peter George, satirizes the Cold War doctrine of mutually assured destruction. Produced on a budget of US$1.8 million, it will gross US$$9,164,370 domestically. IMDB listing MPAA Rating: GP Running Time: 1 hr 33 min

1968
The International Business Machines (IBM) Data Processing Division (DPD) introduces the IBM System/360 Model 85, a high-end addition to the System/360 line, designed to solve complex scientific problems, and the IBM 2420 nine track magnetic tape unit, which operates at twice the speed of previous IBM tape drives.

1987
Microsoft begins shipping Microsoft Word 3.0 for the Macintosh. Visit the official Word website.

1988
New World Pictures releases the science fiction film Hell Comes to Frogtown, directed by Donald G. Jackson and starring Roddy Piper, Sandahl Bergman, Cec Verrell, William Smith, and Rory Calhoun, to US theaters. In it, a survivor living in a post-apocalyptic wasteland must rescue of a group of women from the harem of the mutant tyrant. IMDB listing

Spectrum Holobyte releases the puzzle game Tetris for the Commodore 64 or IBM PC in the US. Tetris is the first entertainment software imported into the US from the Soviet Union. The game was written by Alexi Paszitnov and Vagim Gerasimov at the Computer Center of the USSR Academy of Sciences in Moscow. Visit the official Tetris website. Price: US$24.95 (Commodore 64) or US$34.95 (PC)

1990
The Alien Nation episode “Generation To Generation” first airs. (No. 14) In it, a mysterious Tenctonese artifact leaves a trail of deaths in its wake.

Scientists at Bell Labs demonstrate the first all-optical processor.

The Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “The High Ground” first airs. (No. 312) In it, Crusher is captured by terrorists who hold her hostage as part of a plot to force the Federation to intervene int their struggle. Memory Alpha entry

1992
Minix creator Andy Tanenbaum posts the infamous “LINUX is obsolete” thread on comp.os.minix at 2:23 pm. Linux creator Linus Torvalds rapidly responds to the posting. The debate between Andy Tanenbaum, the father of MINIX, and Linus Torvalds, the father of Linux, will become a famous historical debate. The thread will be closed by Bill Mitchell on February 10, 1992 at 4:31 pm after seventy-three posts. Read an archive of the original thread at Google.

1996
Amiga Technologies GmbH announces the availability of an Amiga computer-based Internet surfer, which consists of an Amiga 1200 with a hard drive, a 14.4 fax modem, and an assortment of bundled Internet software.

Apogee Software releases the first-person shooter (FPS) Duke Nukem 3D for personal computers. Visit the game’s official website. BBFC: 18 ESRB: M (Mature) OFLC: MA15+

The Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) announces that they will exit the home computer market and discontinue development of the Starion computer line. Visit the official DEC website.

The Star Trek: Voyager episode “Threshold” first airs. (No. 132) In it, Paris breaks the Warp 10 barrier, only to discover that the test flight comes a high price. Memory Alpha entry

The US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit upholds the conviction of Robert and Carleen Thomas of the Amateur Action BBS on obscenity laws. In the summer of 1994, the two were convicted of violating anti-obscenity laws, on the grounds that their California bulletin board system (BBS) was used to transmit obscene material to Tennessee. The case raised issues over the meaning of community standards in regard to the net. Read an article discussing the issue entitled, “BBS Obscenity Case Raises New Legal Issues.”

1997
America Online (AOL) announces a plan to offer online credit to compensate subscribers for not providing the unlimited Internet promised with the introduction of its new flat-fee pricing policy in December. Later in the day, AOL takes a stronger stand in order to appease the attorney generals of thirty-seven states by pledging to invest US$350 million to upgrade the network and to temporarily restrict membership at eight million users.

1998
Best Buy announces plans to stop selling Apple Macintosh computers at their 284 retail stores.

The website of Connectos is hacked by “SisterMoon”, “Sn1per”, and “SpiritWalker”.

The website of Dragon Serve is hacked by “T.H.E.”.

The website of Finance Net is hacked by “KpZ”. View an archived version of the defaced website.

The website of Hack Chat is hacked by “Nation”.

The website of Resopal is hacked by “SisterMoon”, “Sn1per”, and “SpiritWalker”.

1999
Konami releases the music game Dance Dance Revolution 2ndMIX to arcades.

2000
The BattleBots event recorded in November, is aired on Pay-Per-View. The show is a break-out success, generating an enormous response online, and a new interest for robotic tournaments which has wained with the diminishing ratings of Robot Wars.

Square holds a “Square Millennium” party at the Pacifico Yokohama convention center in Yokohama, Japan. Before an audience of ten thousand guests, Square announces three new Final Fantasy games to be released in Japan: Final Fantasy IX for the PlayStation in the summer, Final Fantasy X for the PlayStation 2 in spring 2001, and Final Fantasy XI for the PlayStation 2“>PlayStation 2 in summer 2001 release. Square also premieres a brief trailer for the Final Fantasy movie. Visit the official Square website.

2001
The Andromeda episode “The Mathematics of Tears” first airs. (No. 112) In it, the crew discovers what appears to be Andromeda’s sister ship, the Pax Magellanic, with a complete compliment of crew, none of whom appear to have aged a day.

Apple Computer and Hewlett-Packard (HP) announce a joint project to invest US$41 million in the Ofoto, Inc. start-up, an online photography community.

Compaq introduces the iPaq Pocket PC H3150 handheld computer, featuring a 206 MHz Intel StrongArm processor, 16MB RAM, and a grayscale screen. Price: US$349

Infogrames Entertainment announced the completion of its acquisition of Hasbro Interactive, now renamed “Infogrames Interactive” from Hasbro. The acquisition includes Atari video game titles and intellectual properties.

Maxim Integrated Products, Inc. reveals plans to acquire Dallas Semiconductor Corporation for US$2.5 billion in stock.

Sega releases the roleplaying game (RPG) Phantasy Star Online in North America. Visit the game’s official website. ESRB: T (Teen)

The Walt Disney Company reveals that it will shut down its Internet portal, Go.com, cutting four hundred jobs. The portal has been steadily loosing money, costing Disney over US$800 million just in second-quarter charges.

2002
Del Rey releases the Star Wars novel The Approaching Storm by Alan Dean Foster as a hardcover. (ISBN-10: 0345443004) Length: 352 pages

2003
AOL Time Warner posts a loss of nearly US$100 billion dollars for the year 2002, the largest annual loss in US corporate history. Visit the official website of AOL Time Warner.

Registration of the top level domain (TLD) for the Netherlands (.nl) opens to the general public.

Yahoo! introduces a music subscription service, LAUNCHcast Plus. Visit the official LAUNCHcast Plus website.

2007
YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley announces that the company will pay its content contributers a share of their videos’ advertising revenue. The site isn’t the first to take such steps. MetaCafe and Revver both already pay video providers. Visit the official YouTube website.

Nintendo releases the racing game Mario Kart 64 for the Virtual Console in North America. ESRB: E (Everyone)

Symantec announces plans to acquire Altiris, a developer of service-oriented management software. Visit the official Altiris website.