The Great Geek Manual

105 A.D.
In China, Ts’ai Lun, an official of the Han Dynasty Chinese Imperial Court, invents the world’s first paper from a mixture of bamboo, fish nets, mulberry, and rags. He will eventually become wealthy after he present his paper to the Emperor Han Ho Ti.

1702
The first regularly printed English-language newspaper, The Daily Courant is launched by Edward Mallet in London, England. The paper is a single sheet with two columns printed in the rooms above the White Hart pub on Fleet Street. It will run until 1735.

1811
The Luddite riots break out in Nottingham, England. Driven by poverty and insufferable living conditions, a group of laborers attack the factory where they work and destroy sixty-three lace and stocking manufacturing frames that threaten to render many of their jobs unnecessary. The outbreak comes during the Napolenonic Wars, while starvation and unemployment are running rampant. Over the next three weeks armed gangs of Luddites will continue to root out the frames, destroying two hundred of the device by the riots’ end.

1897
A meteorite enters the Earth’s atmosphere and explodes over New Martinsville, West Virginia It causes property damage, but no personal injuries will ever be reported.

1960
NASA launches the Pioneer 5 from Cape Canaveral towards a solar orbit between Earth and Venus aboard a Thor-Able three-stage rocket. It will become the first successful US deep space probe. Pioneer 5 will provide a wealth of data, including cosmic radiation, electrical field and magnetic field measurements. It will continue to transmit until June 26, 1960, to a distance of 22.5 million miles (36 million kilometers) from Earth. Visit the official Pioneer 5 website.

1975
The Atari coin-operated arcade game Hi Way goes into production release in North America. It is Atari’s first game to use a cockpit cabinet to allow players to to sit down while they play. Hi Way is a single player horizontal-scrolling racing game. It is marketed under the slogan “Hi Way — All It Needs Is Wheels,” and its unique cabinet will make it a smash success.

1980
The International Business Machines (IBM) Data Processing Division (DPD) unveils several new models of the IBM 3850 online tape storage system. Visit the official IBM website.

1982
Release 18 of Infocom’s interactive fiction game Deadline is released for personal computers. It is one of the first interactive mystery games, and Infocom’s third game.

1983
According to Twin Galaxies, Mark Robichek scores a record-setting 1,214,600 points playing the Williams arcade game Moon Patrol at the Golfland USA arcade in Mountain View, California. Visit the official Twin Galaxies website.

Atari and Coleco Industries settle their law suits. Under the settlement, Coleco is licensed to continue making and selling the Expansion Module No. 1 for the ColecoVision and to produce the Coleco Gemini video game system.

1985
ConnNet, the nation’s first local public packet switching network, is launched in Connecticut. The network can be used to access a number of services, and corporations could use the network to provide their employees mainframe access at home.

1989
Del Rey releases the science fiction novel Homegoing by Frederik Pohl as a hardcover. (ISBN-10: 0345339754) Visit the author’s official website. Length: 279 pages

1991
Apple Computer discontinues the Macintosh IIcx, featuring a 16MHz Motorola 68030 processor, 1 – 2MB RAM (expandable to 128MB), and the System 6.0.5 OS. The system was introduced on March 7, 1989, and it gained popularity among Mac enthusiasts because its components could be snapped into place without screws. Price: US$5369

The Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Galaxy’s Child” first airs. (No. 416) In it, when the Enterprise is forced to defend itself against an space-dwelling alien entity, the crew rushes to rescue the creature’s unborn offspring. Memory Alpha entry

1994
Version 8.0 of the Unicos operating system is released.

1995
Square releases Chrono Trigger for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) in Japan. CERO: A (All Ages)

1996
The EU Database Directive is passed, extending and harmonizing the treatment of databases under databases.

The March 11th issue of Forbes magazine dubs George Lucas “The magician” for erasing the line between fantasy and reality. In the seven page feature article, author Randall Lane profiles Lucas and reports on how his company, Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), has brought computer technology to filmmaking. Read the ILM technology timeline.

1997
An explosion at a nuclear waste reprocessing plant in Japan exposes thirty-five workers to low-level radioactive contamination in the worst nuclear accident in Japan’s history.

1998
At the CeBIT trade show in Hannover, Germany, Eiger Labs releases the first portable digital audio player, the MPMan F10, which will be sold in North America. It is the first in a long series of what will be called “MP3 Players” to hit the market. It features a 32MB capacity capable of holding up to eight songs, which is expandable to 64MB, and it operates on one AA battery. It’ll end up as a commercial failure due to the release of the technologically superior Rio PMP300 later in the month for fifty dollars less. Price: US$250 Weight: 2oz

1999
Infosys, a leading information technology services firm, becomes the first Indian company to be listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange. Visit the official Infosys website.

Next Generation Online reports that, according to sources, the PlayStation 2 video game system will use Linux and SGI as their development environment.

The website of the National Center of Human Rights is hacked by “alt3kxH3z”. View an archived version of the defaced website.

2000
A hacker attacks and shuts down the Chinese ecommerce site it163.com that sells goods from the nation’s fifty top domestic stores.

Sega releases the racing game Metropolis Street Racer for the Dreamcast in Europe. Visit the game’s official website.

The website of HackZone Russia is hacked by “ActionDirectGroup”. View an archived version of the defaced website.

2001
Version 0.6 of the CRUX operating system is released. Crux is designed to be a lightweight, i686-optimized Linux distribution for experienced Linux users. Visit the system’s official website.

2002
The Earth Simulator Center (ESC) in Kanazawa, Yokohama, Kanagawa, Japan opens after nearly seventeen months of construction. The facility houses the Earth Simulator, the fastest supercomputer in the world, which is capable of performing 35.86 trillion floating-point calculations per second. The system was developed by JAERI, JAMSTEC, and NASDA by NEC to run global climate simulations to predict the impact of global warming. The system will remain the world’s fastest computer until 2004.

2003
Toshiba Computer Systems introduces the Pocket PC e750 handheld computer, featuring a 400MHz Intel XScale PXA255 processor, 96MB RAM, a CompactFlash II slot, a Secure Digital slot, and built-in Wi-Fi wireless connectivity. Price: US$599

2004
Hewlett-Packard (HP) agrees to acquire TruLogica, a developer of IT software.

2005
Apple Computer joins the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA), the consortium that develops and licenses the Blu-Ray format. Visit the official Blu-Ray Disc Association website.

Twentieth Century Fox releases the animated feature Robots, directed by Chris Wedge and Carlos Saldanha and featuring the voice talents of Ewan McGregor, Robin Williams, Halle Berry, Mel Brooks, Stanley Tucci, Dianne Wiest, Drew Carey, Amanda Bynes, Harland Williams, Greg Kinnear, Paul Giamatti, Jim Broadbent, and Jennifer Coolidge, to 3,776 US theaters. In it, an idealistic young robot sets out to meet his idol, who lives in the big city, but when he arrives, he discovers that his idol’s company has come under new management. Produced on a budget of US$75 million, it will gross US$36,045,301 domestically in its opening weekend. IMDB listing MPAA Rating: PG Running Time: 1 hr 29 mins

2007
In the United States, Daylight Saving Time (DST) begins three weeks early, due to the Energy Policy Act of 2005, and it will end a week later than usual, on the first Sunday of November. The Act was inspired by similar bills introduced in Great Britain during WWI to conserve coal.

2008
Microsoft reduces the price of its Xbox 360 video game consoles by 18 – 28 percent in Europe, bringing the price of the Arcade version to €200 (US$307) and the high-end Elite to €370 (US$568).