The Great Geek Manual

1493
Christopher Columbus returns to Spain from his first voyage to the new world, which began on August 3, 1492. The return comes after spending a week in Portugal, where his ship had been blown by a storm during the return trip.

1915
The English Divisional Court of Appeal rules in the case of Ellis v North Metropolitan Theatres Ltd. that local authorities do not have the right to ban cinema exhibitions on Sundays.

1959
At Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York, the first US atomic reactor built specifically for medical research, the Brookhaven Medical Research Reactor (BMRR), reaches criticality. The reactor will be decommissioned in December 2000.

1960
The National Observatory at Kitt Peak, Arizona is dedicated. Housing twenty-three telescopes, it is the largest and most diverse gathering of astronomical instruments in the world. Visit the official Kitt Peak National Observatory website.

1963
The International Business Machines (IBM) Data Processing Division (DPD) introduces the IBM 1050 data communications system. Visit the official IBM website.

1968
The International Business Machines (IBM) Data Processing Division (DPD) introduces the IBM 1450 bank data processing system specifically designed for small banks. Visit the official IBM website.

1972
The first Unix manual page for cc, the C programming language compiler, is published.

NASA selects a three-part configuration for the design of the Space Shuttle: an expendable external tank for the first stage, partially reusable Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs), and the reusable orbiter. Visit the official NASA Shuttle website.

1982
The Videotex Gateway trial is launched in Los Angeles, California by the Times-Mirror. Videotex is one of the first end-user information systems. It will end on December 31.

1983
A Taipei, Taiwan, high court upholds charges brought by Apple Computer charge against Golden Formosa Microcomputer and Sunrise Computer Service of manufacturing and selling pirated copies of patented Apple software products.

International Business Machines (IBM) Japan announces the IBM 5550 Multistation in Japan, featuring an 8MHz Intel 8086 microprocessor, 256KB RAM (expandable to 512KB), up to three 640KB capacity floppy drives, and a 1024×768 graphics monochrome display. Price: US$4,200-10,000

1985
Symbolic.com becomes the very first registered internet domain.

1989
Antic Software publishes the first issue of Amiga Plus magazine.

1989
Henk Rogers makes an offer to acquire the rights to develop a console version of Tetris on behalf of Nintendo. While the details of the offer will remain undisclosed, it is high enough that Mirrorsoft will not attempt to match it. Read more about the history of Tetris.

1994
Adobe Systems Inc., developer of leading graphics editing programs, and Aldus Corporation, developer of the PageMaker desktop publishing program, announce that they will merge.

John Frost’s original Cyberpoet’s Guide to Virtual Culture is first posted to the alt.cyberspace newsgroup. This seminal work, which can be read in its entirety at Textfiles.com. The guide begins with this introduction:

Beyond the hype, behind the glamour, underneath the sea of buzzwords, icons and flames a new subculture is spreading in this petri dish known as the Internet. Here science and art – media and mind – combine in a cyborg frenzy to create this replicant cousin to cyberpunk and hacking. It is a subculture with no name, few labels, but thousands of common attractors, which link together before our eyes like digital DNA to create, in the helix of the autologue, a new frontier for participants in these wide virtual spaces to explore.

Any document that attempts to cover an emerging culture is doomed to be incomplete. Even more so if the culture has no overt identity (at least none outside virtual space). But the other side of that coin presents us with the opportunity to document the ebb and flow, the moments of growth and defeat, the development of this young culture.

Although young, there is rich history and varied philosophies for this group to draw on. From cyberpunk, the quest for access to information and a vision of the future (the cyber) has been exorcised from the distopic and ‘punk’ish views of the monster the media has made of cyberpunk. From the Hacker ethic, we get the rally cry that “infomation wants to be free.” From the workings of the Internet, we see the desire for universal access and the pursuit of Jeffersonian Democracy (kapor) that is manifested itself partially through the anarchy inherent in the system and partially through the efforts of many net.users.

This document, although significantly different, attempts to pick up where the FutureCulture FAQ (by Andy Hawks) left off. It should act as a starting point for those new to the net, as one avenue to reach a level of net.literacy, and as a handy reference point for those already comfortable in this pocket of the net.

1997
In Seattle, Washington, the GameWorks video arcade opens. The arcade is a joint venture between DreamWorks, Sega Enterprises of Japan, and Universal Studios. The arcade’s main attraction is the Vertical Reality interactive game, which was designed by Steven Spielberg. Up to twelve players are seated around columns of three video screens, and, as opponents are shot, players are elevated. The object of the game is to reach the top.

1998
Apple Computer opens “stores within stores” in all one hundred forty-nine CompUSA chain stores across the country, addressing the long-standing complaints of Mac users over the lack of selection at most local retailers.

Microsoft releases Office 98 (Office 8.0) for Mac OS X. The suite includes Word 98, Excel 5, and PowerPoint 98. Visit the official Office Mac website.

The Stockton Community Wide Web is hacked. Hackers use a Unix command to remove the root files, as well as the core operating system files, but the damage will be partially repaired. Internet Ventures, the company that operates the Stockton Community Wide Web, will later confirm that the ISP’s system was crashed, but it will decline to give further details.

1999
The United States Navy’s Medical Information Management Center (NMIMC) in Bethesda is hacked by Russian hackers in support of Serbia.

2000
Eighteen year old Welsh hacker Raphael Gray, also known by the handle “Curador” (Welsh for custodian), is arrested for Internet fraud under the United Kingdom’s 1990 Computer Misuse Act in a joint operation between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Welsh Police. Authorities claim that Gray, the self-styled “Saint of E-commerce,” along with an unnamed teenage cousin, may have caused losses in excess of three million. Gray and his accomplice allegedly hacked into the ordering functions of nine top international retail sites around the world, stealing credit card information related to more than twenty-six accounts in the United States, Canada, Thailand, Japan, and Britain, including those of Microsoft’s Bill Gates. Gray then published the details of 6,500 credit cards on two of his own websites, where he cited the information as an example of weak security in the growing number of consumer websites. It will later be revealed in court that Gray had sent Viagra tablets Gates’ home using the billionaire’s own credit card. The two are caught after emailing credit card details, including those of Gates, to NBCi, a subsidiary of the NBC broadcasting group. In July 2001, Gray will be sentenced to a three years community rehabilitation with psychiatric care.

MicroStrategy, Inc. announces that its majority share holder, billionaire Michael Saylor, plans to donate US$100 million to launch a free online university. Read more at CNN.

2001
Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE) and Connectix settle their legal battle over Connectix’s PlayStation 2 emulator with an agreement that Sony will acquire all assets related to the software, so that the two companies can jointly develop it.

Version 2.2 of the backdoor program SubSeven is released. The program allows crackers to execute a number of tasks on a target, including modifying the registry, retrieving passwords, and transferring files. Visit the official Sub7 website. Visit the Sub7 Legends website.

2002
Screen Gems releases the action film Resident Evil, directed by Paul Anderson and starring Milla Jovovich, Michelle Rodriguez, Eric Mabius, James Purefoy, and Martin Crewes to 2,528 theaters in the US. The film is based on the 1996 game Resident Evil. In it, a women suffering from amnesia seeks answers about her past, and a military unit seeks to recover a secret facility over which the woman has been station by the corporation for which she works. Produced on a budget of US$33 million, the film will gross US$17,707,106 domestically in its opening weekend. IMDB listing MPAA Rating: R Running Time: 1 hr 34 mins

2004
The discovery of 90377 Sedna, the most distant natural object in the solar system yet observed is announced. Visit the official NASA website for Sedna.

Gearbox Software releases the first-person shooter (FPS) Halo: Custom Edition for Windows. This edition of the game allows users to make use of player-generated maps and game modifications. Visit the game’s official website. ESRB: M (Mature)

Internal T-Mobile USA systems are hacked by a seventeen year old Massachusetts teenager. The teen will continue to exploit the system for the next fifteen months, during which time he will access Paris Hilton’s Sidekick. The numbers stored on the phone include those of actor Vin Diesel, rapper Eminem, singers Ashlee Simpson and Christina Aguilera, and tennis players Andy Roddick and Anna Kournikova. The teen will subsequently publish the information taken from the phone along with several risque photos on the Internet. The hacker also created telephone accounts for himself and friends without paying for them. In September of 2005, the teen will be sentenced to eleven months in a juvenile facility. The entire series of events is one of the most publicized hacks in history, thanks to the publicity and constant scandal surrounding Hilton.

2006
Sony announces the PlayStation 3 will not be release in the spring as was earlier announced but will instead be delayed until November.