The Great Geek Manual

1847
New York and Boston are linked by telegraph wires.

1885
Chichester Bell and Charles Sumner Tainter apply for a patent which will be granted on May 4, 1886 for a phonograph-type apparatus called the graphophone. (US No. 341,214) The device improves on Thomas Edison’s principles by specifying cardboard discs coated with wax in which a vibrating style cuts a narrow spiral groove. Bell and Tainter decide to use cylinders rather than discs while still employing hill-and-dale inscribing rather than the lateral-cut.

1898
The first solo circumnavigation of the globe is completed by Joshua Slocum from Briar Island, Nova Scotia aboard his sloop-rigged fishing boat that he named Spray.

1923
John Logie Baird runs an advertisement in The Times personal column. “Seeing by Wireless—inventor of apparatus wishes to hear from someone who will assist (not financially) in making working model.” His experiments are being conducted at 21 Linton Crescent, Hastings, Sussex.

1929
The first telephone is installed on President Hoover’s desk. Up to this time, the President talked from a booth outside his executive office.

The first public demonstration of a color television is given by Herbert E. Ives and his colleagues at Bell Telephone Laboratories in New York. The first images are a bouquet of roses and an American flag. A mechanical system is used to transmit the 50-line color television images between AT&T in New York and Washington.

1932
In Britain, the Baird Laboratories exhibits a range of domestic television sets. Their screens are nine inches by four inches.

1949
Captain Video and His Video Rangers, was the first science fiction, space adventure program on television, debuts on the DuMont Television Network. Set in the future, the series follows the adventures of the Video Rangers, a group of fighters led by Captain Video. The Rangers operate from a secret base on a mountain top, battling the forces of evil. Captain Video’s opponent is Dr. Pauli, an inventor who wears gangster-style pinstripe suits and speaks with the snarl of a cinema Nazi or Soviet. Captain Video’s live adventures run about fifteen minutes of each day’s thirty minute program. The second half of the show features a communications officer hosting about fifteen minutes of old theatrical films, usually old cowboy movies. Read more at the Museum of Broadcast Communications. Watch a Captain Video clip on YouTube.

1954
The world’s first nuclear power station, located in Obninsk, near Moscow, first, begins producing electricity.

1966
The first broadcast of Dark Shadows is aired on ABC-TV. Read more at DarkShadows.com.

1967
The world’s first cash dispensing Automated Teller Machine (ATM), manufactured by De La Rue Instruments, is installed at a Barclays Bank branch in Enfield, London. The machine is called the De La Rue Automatic Cash System, or DACS. It dispense money in exchange for paper vouchers bought from bank tellers in advance.

1969
The Telesat Canada Act is passed to “establish a Canadian corporation for telecommunication by satellite.”

1972
Atari is established by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney to manufacture arcade games. They founded Atari’s forerunner, Syzygy Corp., with US$250 from Bushnell’s savings account, some of which was earned from building Computer Space units for Nutting and Associates, and Dabney’s equal contribution of US$250. When the duo found out the name Syzygy was already taken, they chose the name Atari instead. Atari is a term used in the traditional game of Go and is the name of a manuever which engulf’s an opponent’s pieces. The company is first located at 2962 Scott Boulevard in a low rent district of Santa Clara, California. Bally will be one of Atari’s first customers with a contract to develop extra-wide pinball playfields. To establish a business base, the founders initiate a route to install and service pinball machines. Their route includes one bar, several coffee shops, and the Student Union building at Stanford University. Later, Dabney will take the route as part of a settlement to leave the company. The first full-time employee of Atari is Cynthia Villanueva, age 17, who once babysat Bushnell’s children. Cynthia will be Atari’s receptionist at its modest garage-style office. Incoming calls will purposely be held for a short time to create an illusion of being routed through a larger firm. Cynthia will stay with Atari for over ten years. Atari’s second employee will be Al Alcorn, the vice-president of Engineering with a salary of US$1,000 a month. Read more at the Atari History Museum.

1978
The first pen with truly erasable ink, the Gillette Eraser Mate, is invented.

Seasat, an experimental US ocean surveillance satellite is launched. Each day, Seasat makes fourteen orbits of the Earth, and in a period of thirty-six hours is able to monitor nearly ninety-six percent of the Earth’s oceanic surfaces. The measurement equipment on board is able to penetrate cloud cover and report measurements such as wave height, water temperature, currents, winds, icebergs, and coastal characteristics. Although it will only operate for ninety-nine days before a power failure renders it inoperable, it will prove the viability of such a satellite collecting oceanic data.

The Soviets put a Polish astronomer in orbit on the Salyut 6 orbital station.

1983
Apple sells its one millionth Apple II computer.

1991
Atari announces that they have closed the sale of their assembly plant in Taiwan for US$60 million. Some proceeds will go to the reduction of US$27 million in bank debts. Manufacturing and assembly is now subcontracted throughout Hong Kong and Taiwan.

1994
Geffen Records partners with CompuServe to offer an outtake from Aerosmith’s Get a Grip album that had been previously available only as a B side in England, Spain, and Japan for free to CompuServe subscribers for one week. In order to offer the music at no cost, Aerosmith waived its customary royalties and CompuServe suspended its US$9.60 hourly charge.

1995
Internet software producer Spyglass, Inc. goes public, the year after it began distributing Spyglass Mosaic, an early browser for navigating the Web. The company, founded in 1990 by students, is an offshoot of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and was created to commercialize and support technologies from the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA).

1997
The Atari trademark and related corporate entity turns twenty-five years old.

The Game Boy version of the Tamagotchi video game, based on the popular keychain virtual pet keychain of the same name, is released in Japan. Price: 4,500 Yen

The Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) spacecraft passes within 750 miles (1,200km) of the asteroid Mathilde, which it photographs.

2000
Microsoft announces that the first update to Windows 2000 will be available “soon” and that it estimates that licensed sales have reached three million units since the system’s release on February 17, 2000.

2001
Funcom releases the sci-fi MMORPG Anarchy Online for Windows.

VA Linux Systems, headquartered in Fremont, California, stops selling Linux computers and lays off thirty-five percent (153) of its work force of 436. The company built and sold personal computer systems pre-installed with the GNU/Linux operating system as an alternative to the much more expensive Unix workstations available. When they opened, they were one of the first computer vendors to offer Linux as a pre-installed operating system. They grew into the largest vendor of pre-installed Linux computers, having approximately twenty percent of the Linux hardware market. Following the discontinuation of it’s computer sales, VA Linux Systems will become SourceForge and go on to operate such sites as SourceForge.net, Slashdot, NewsForge, Linux.com, IT Managers Journal, and Freshmeat.

2003
The United States National Do Not Call Registry is launched by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to combat the rising telemarketing epidemic. Almost three-quarters of a million phone numbers are registered on the list in its first day.

2004
The Russian urban fantasy action film, Night Watch, is premiered at the Moscow Film Festival. The film will be released theatrically across Russia on July 8th, and it will ultimately make more in the that country than the blockbuster The Lord of the Rings.

2005
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) files a broad antitrust complaint against the Intel Corporation in the US Federal District Court in Delaware, alleging that Intel has abused monopolistic powers and committed antitrust violations through the systematic use of secret rebates, special discounts, threats, and other means intended to lock AMD processors out of the global market. AMD will issue subpoenas to major computer manufacturers including Dell, HP, IBM, Microsoft, Sony, and Toshiba.

AMD releases the Athlon 64 FX-57 processor with a running speed of 2800MHz and a 1024KiB Level 2 Cache.

AMD wins an antitrust suit against Intel in Japan.

In the case of in MGM Studios, Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd., the US Supreme Court unanimously rules that the companies which develop the peer-to-peer file sharing programs Grokster and Morpheus may be held accountable when their users pirate music. Read more at the BBC.

2006
Apple releases Mac OS X Server Update 10.4.7.

Apple releases version 2.0.4 of the Safari web browser. Visit the software’s official website.

Apple releases version 2.3 of iSync, a software application used to synchronize data in iCal and the Address Book with .Mac and mobile devices, as a part of the Mac OS X v10.4.7 update. This version of iSync features support for additional mobile handsets. Visit the software’s official website.

Circuit City Stores, Inc. announces that Philip J. Schoonover will succeed W. Alan McCollough as Chairman of the Board. Visit the company’s official website.

MySpace amends its user agreement with, “MySpace.com does not claim any ownership rights in the text, files, images, photos, video, sounds, musical works, works of authorship, or any other materials (collectively, ‘Content’) that you post to the MySpace Services. After posting your Content to the MySpace Services, you continue to retain all ownership rights in such Content, and you continue to have the right to use your Content in any way you choose.”

New York Times Best Selling author Jim Butcher, author of The Dresden Files and Codex Alera, releases a Spider-Man novel, entitled The Darkest Hours. Visit the Jim Butcher’s official website.

Sony Pictures releases the first teaser trailer for Spider-Man 3 onto the Internet. The first full-length trailer won’t premiere in traditional media channels, such as cable, television, and theaters, until November 9th.

Version 4 of Google Desktop, search software for Mac OS X, Windows Vista, Windows XP and Windows 2000 SP3+ personal computers, graduates from beta. The program allows full text search of a user’s e-mail, computer files, music, photos, chat, and Internet history, along with many other useful “Google Gadgets.” Visit the official Google Desktop website.

Version 4.5 of AOLserver, America Online’s multithreaded, Tcl-enabled open source http web server for large scale, dynamic websites, is released under the AOLserver Public License, which is similar to the Mozilla Public License. Visit the software’s official website.

2007
Google launches a beta version of its Google Desktop search for Linux. Visit the official Google Desktop website.

2008
Bill Gates spends his last full day at Microsoft before retiring to concentrate on his philanthropic work through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; however, he will remain the company’s non-executive chairman.

NASA scientists announce that a preliminary analysis of the soil of Mars conducted by the Phoenix Mars Lander has revealed that it appears to contain sufficient nutrients to support some forms of plant life, being far more alkaline than previously guessed. Read more at the BBC.

Universal Pictures releases the action film Wanted, directed by Timur Bekmambetov and starring James McAvoy, Morgan Freeman, and Angelina Jolie, to 3,175 US theaters. Its story is loosely based on the comic book series of the same name by Mark Millar. Produced on a budget of US$75 million, it will gross US$50,927,085 domestically in its opening weekend. IMDB listing (MPAA Rating: R) Running Time: 1 hr 48 mins

Walt Disney Pictures releases the sci-fi animated film Wall-E, directed by Andrew Stanton and starring Ben Burtt, Elissa Knight, and John Ratzenberger, to 3,992 US theaters. Produced on a budget of US$180 million, it will gross US$63,087,526 domestically in its opening weekend. IMDB listing (MPAA Rating: G) Running Time: 1 hr 37 mins