The Great Geek Manual

1992
At the Winter Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Apple Computer chairman John Sculley coins the term “Personal Digital Assistant” (PDA), referring to the handheld computers that are typically operated with a stylus through a LCD display. Sculley coins the term while announcing that Apple will enter the consumer-electronics market by year’s end.

Nintendo of America lowers the suggested retail price of the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) from US$199.95 to US$179.95 and the price of the Game Boy is lowered from US$89.95 to US$79.95.

1996
Apple Computer officially unveils the Newton 2.0 operating system. The system will be released on March 14th.

1998
The Dimension website is hacked by “The Elite Klan of Dark Afro’s”. Visit an archived version of the deface website.

The Gladsaxe Kommune website is hacked by “Magica de Bin”. Visit an archived version of the deface website.

The T/R Systems website is hacked by “ViRtU3″. Visit an archived version of the deface website.

The Webbnet website is hacked by “Magica de Bin”. Visit an archived version of the deface website.

2001
At the Macworld Conference & Expo, Apple Computer CEO Steven Jobs unveils the Mac OS X operating system and the Titanium PowerBook G4 notebook, featuring a titanium case, a 15.2 inch, 8MB ATI Rage Mobility 128 graphics processor, a DVD drive, USB ports, FireWire ports, 128 or 256MB RAM, 10 or 20GB hard drive, and 400 or 500MHz G4 processor. Price: US$2,599 – US$3,499

At the Macworld Conference & Expo, Apple Computer launches the iTunes 1.0 media platform for the Macintosh. The platform marks the beginning of Apple’s strategy of making the Mac the hub of the new “digital lifestyle.” Visit the iTunes website.

At the Macworld Conference & Expo, Apple Computer also demonstrates its Mac OS X, which it promises to release on March 24th. Visit the official Mac OS X website.

The unmanned Chinese spacecraft Shenzhou 2 is launched. The ship carries a dog, a monkey, and a rabbit, and its mission is to test the spacecraft’s life support systems.

Yahoo! launches the Yahoo! Portal Builder 2.0.

2004
At the behest of the Central Bank Counterfeit Deterrence Group (CBCDG), an organization formed in 1993 by the governors of the G-10 central banks, Adobe incorporates code into Photoshop to prevent users from using the software to counterfeit any of several nations’ currency. The code allegedly prevents users from opening overly precise images of these nations’ bank notes, though details of what limitations the code imposes is secret. While Adobe isn’t the first company to incorporate such technologies, an Adobe spokesman claims the company is the largest.

2006
Video game publisher Take-Two Interactive acquires game developer Irrational Games. Visit the official Take-Two website.

Yahoo! acquires Webjay, a web-based music playlist service. The service will be shut down at the end of June 2007.

2007
At the Macworld Conference & Expo in San Francisco, CEO Steven Jobs introduces the Apple TV digital media receiver, which will begin shipping on March 21 for US$299. Visit the official Apple TV website.

At the Macworld Conference & Expo, Steven Jobs announces that movies from Paramount movies will be sold on iTunes in addition to movies from Disney. He also announces that Apple’s iTunes store has sold over two billion songs since its launch. Visit the official iTunes website.

At the Macworld Conference & Expo, Steve Jobs introduces the iPhone. The device features a 3.5 inches glass multi-touch touchscreen display and quad-band GSM with GPRS and EDGE. In his address, Jobs said, “I have been looking forward to this for two and a half years”, and that “today, Apple is going to reinvent the phone.”[18] Jobs introduced the iPhone as a combination of three devices: a “widescreen iPod with touch controls”; a “revolutionary mobile phone”; and a “breakthrough Internet communicator.” The 4GB version will be sold for US$499, beginning in June. Visit the official iPhone website.

At the Macworld Conference & Expo, Jobs also announces that Apple Computer, Inc. will henceforth be known as Apple, Inc.

Version 0.1 of the Correo open source e-mail client is released for the Mac OS X. Visit the application’s official website.

2009
Microsoft Corporation releases the beta version of its Windows 7 operating system to 2.5 million users.

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