The Great Geek Manual

1683
The general public is admitted for the first time to the world’s first university museum, the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, in Oxford. It is the first public museum to open in Britain, and perhaps in the entire world. The building serves several purposes. The basement contains a chemistry laboratory, the ground floor contains lecture halls, and the top floor houses a collection of curiosities acquired by Elias Ashmole and donated to the university. Visit the official Ashmolean website.

1899
Thomas Edison is issued a patent for his “Filament for And Process of Incandescent Lamps.” (US No. 626,460) “I form a filament of highly-refractory non-conducting material which is preferably porous, and incorporate therein isolated particles of carbon, so as to produce spark gaps between the particles, whereby high-tension currents, either alternating, continuous, or intermittent, will be conducted from particle to particle of the carbon to raise the filament to incandescence. … The highly refractory material I prefer to use … is an oxid or oxids of the rare earths – such as the oxid of zirconium, thorium and others.”

1902
Scottish chemist professor James Dewar exhibits air in the solid state and a jet of liquid air rising six feet above it with beautiful effects, before the Prince and Princess of Wales.

1914
Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs is published as a hardcover. The story, which marks the debut of the character Tarzan, was originally published in the the pulp magazine All-Story Magazine in October 1912. It’s popularity merited standalone publication, however, and it will soon spawn one of the most popular media franchises in history. This is Burroughs’ first novel to be published as a hardcover. Read the original story at Project Gutenberg.

1933
The first drive-in movie theater is opened on a ten acre site off Wilson Boulevard in Camden, New Jersey by garage-owner Richard Hollingshead. The theater features a 40ft x 30ft screen and a four hundred car capacity arranged in semi-circular rows. The debut film was Wife Beware. Hollingshead had shown films on his gas station forecourt the previous year and received a patent on the idea of the “automobile theatre” just three weeks prior. The theaters will flourish after World War II as settings for family entertainment. In fact, Hollingshead’s original slogan will be “The whole family is welcome, regardless of how noisy the children are.”

1966
Gemini 9 returns to Earth, landing at 13:59GMT, after a flight which included a two hour space walk, broadcast live on television. The crew remained with the spacecraft, which was hoisted aboard the primary recovery ship, the aircraft carrier Wasp fifty-three minutes after landing.

1969
The first Internet connection is established when network control protocol packets are sent from the data port of one Interface Message Processor (IMP) to another.

1971
The first space station flight, Soyuz 11 is launched on a mission to Salyut 1 by the USSR. Equipment aboard Salyut 1 includes a telescope, spectrometer, electrophotometer, and television. The crew checks improved on-board spacecraft systems in different conditions of flight and conducts medico-biological research. The main instrument, a large solar telescope, is rendered inoperative when it fails to jettison. A small fire and difficult working conditions will lead to a decision to return the station’s crew before the mission’s planned duration of thirty days.

1975
Atari introduces the Anti-Aircraft coin-operated arcade game.

1982
According to Twin Galaxies, Craig Nichols scores a record-setting 2,638,800 points playing the Midway arcade game Omega Race at the Arcade Alley arcade in Glendora, California. Visit the official Twin Galaxies website.

The Summer Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is held. During the event, 20th Century-Fox Film announces its entry into the video game industry, by forming a new division to create software for the Atari VCS game system.

1983
At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Texas Instruments (TI) introduces the TI 99/8 home computer, featuring 80KB RAM. Price: Under US$500

1984
Alexey Pajitnov first releases Tetris in the USSR. It will go one to become the most popular puzzle game of all time. Pajitnov created Tetris on an Elektronika 60 while working at the Computer Center of the Soviet Academy of Sciences in Moscow with Dmitry Pavlovsky. Programmer Vadim Gerasimov ported it to the more popular IBM PC platform. The game’s name is derived from the Greek prefix “tetra-” because all of the game’s pieces (referred to as Tetrominoes) contain four segments and the English word “tennis,” which is Pajitnov’s favorite sport. Over the coming decades, over seventy million copies of the game will be sold. Visit the official Tetris website.

1989
International Business Machines (IBM) introduces the Interleaf desktop publishing software for DOS-based personal computers. Price: US$750-995

1995
International Business Machines (IBM), Siemens, and Toshiba unveil the world’s smallest and fastest 256MB Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM) chip. It is 13.25mm x 21.55mm and has a twenty-six nanosecond access time.

The Los Angeles Times reports on the merging of religion and technology in Vatican City, where Father Leonard Boyle is working to put the Vatican’s extensive library on the Internet, “bringing the computer to the Middle Ages and the Vatican library to the world.” Boyle is computerizing the library’s catalog and working to place manuscripts and paintings online in a project funded by IBM.

1996
Yahoo, Inc. announces a plan to “beef up” their search service by adding Digital Equipment Corporation’s (DEC) Alta Vista search technology.

1997
International Business Machines (IBM) introduces Aptiva C3D computers with DVD-ROM drives. Price: US$1,799 to US$2899

1998
Version 3.0 of the PHP programming language is released. Visit the official PHP website.

1999
The ExploreZip worm, which destroys Microsoft Office documents, is first detected.

2000
At the COMPUTEX Taipei trade show, Via Technologies of Taiwan introduces the Cyrix III processor, available in speeds ranging from 533 to 667MHz. Price: US$75 to US$160

2001
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) releases the 950MHz Duron processor. Price: US$122 in 1000-unit quantities

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) releases the 1.4GHz Athlon processor. Price: US$253 in 1000-unit quantities

Romany Groups announces its intentions to sue International Business Machines (IBM) for US$10,000 for each of the 1.2 million people who were made orphans by Nazis during World War II. According to their claims, IBM’s Hollerith tabulating machine was fundamentally instrumental to the system Nazi Germany used to tracked Jewish prisoners.

World War II Online goes live after a lengthy closed beta. It’s release is timed to coincide with the anniversary of the D-Day invasion of Normandy. While its disastrous launch will become legendary in the game industry, it is widely considered groundbreaking as the very first massive multiplayer online first-person shooter (MMOFPS).

2002
Microsoft releases Class Server 3.0, a learning management platform for grades K-12. By helping teachers create, deliver and grade standards-aligned assessments and lessons over the Web, Class Server allows school districts to easily track, analyze and improve student achievement against local curriculum standards in accordance with the requirements of the “No Child Left Behind” Act of 2001.

2003
Corel announces it has agreed to be acquired by Vector Capital, for about US$98 million.

2005
In a keynote address at the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), Steven Jobs announces that Apple will begin transitioning the Macintosh line of computers from PowerPC to Intel microprocessors and demonstrates a version of Mac OS X running on a computer powered by an Intel Pentium 4 processor. Intel-powered Macs are able to run Macintosh software compiled for PowerPC processors with a dynamic translation system known as “Rosetta“.

Time magazine features an article entitled, “It’s a Wiki, Wiki World.” The article spotlights the founder of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales. Read the article at Time magazine online.

Version 3.1 of the Debian GNU/Linux operating system is released. This is the first Debian release to includes OpenOffice.org (version 1.1.3). It also features integrated cryptographic software, including OpenSSH and GNU Privacy Guard along with strong encryption. Code-name: Sarge

Vivendi Universal releases the fantasy massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) World of Warcraft for personal computers in China.

2006
Apple re-releases the U2 Special Edition iPod in a 30GB capacity with a distinctive all black case, a red click wheel, and engravings of the band members’ autographs on the back.

The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) files a lawsuit against the state of Minnesota in Minnesota Federal District Court, in order to overturn a new bill that would fine minors (children and teens) US$25 for buying or renting mature and adults-only games. The group argues that the law violates First Amendment rights. In July, the court will rule the law unconstitutional.

Google Inc. launches a beta bersion of Google Labs Spreadsheets as the first publicly available component of what will eventually become Google Docs. The free, Web-based spreadsheet application is a product of the company’s acquisition of the XL2Web product developed by 2Web Technologies. Visit the official Google Docs website.

The film The Omen directed by John Moore and starring Liev Schreiber, Julia Stiles, and Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick, is released to 2,723 theaters. It is a remake of the 1976 horror classic of the same name. Produced on a budget of US$25 million, the film will gross US$16,026,496 in the opening weekend. The Omen opened on a Tuesday in order to be released on June 6, and recorded the highest opening Tuesday box office gross in domestic box office history in the United States IMDB listing

Hewlett-Packard (HP) announces that it will acquire Silverwire Holding AG, a commercial digital photography solutions and software provider with a strong presence in the retail photo market.

2008
International Business Machines (IBM) scientists announce the development of a new method of cooling next-generation computer chips with “hair-width” pipes of water. The technology is first demonstrated using IBM’s 3D chips, which are stacked one on top of the other to reduce the distance data has to travel , enhance performance, and save space, making cooling the processors critical. Visit the official IBM website.

Wizards of the Coast publishes the Fourth Edition Player’s Handbook, subtitled Arcane, Divine and Martial Heroes, for the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game as a hardcover. (ISBN 0-7869-4867-1) The game’s 4th Edition has been re-designed to offer more streamlined game play with new rules intended to reduce the time required to run a game and make the game easier for new players. Length: 320pp

2009
Palm, Inc. releases the Palm Pre, the first device to feature the Palm webOS operating system, through Sprint.