The Great Geek Manual

1637
The table knife is invented by Cardinal Richelieu in France. Previously, daggers were used to cut meat at a meal and to pick one’s teeth. Richelieu becomes the first person of note to provide his dinner guests with knives so that there would be no need for them to bring their own along and to further round the points off all of his knives to remove their usefulness as personal weapons.

1821
Samuel Rust of New York City patents the Washington Press, the first practical and successful printing press to be built in America. George E Clymer’s Columbian Press was the first press to be built in America, however, it was never widely adopted.

1880
Thomas Edison performs the first test of his electric railway in Menlo Park, New Jersey.

1884
Less than five years after the successful development of the first incandescent light bulb, the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE), the predecessor of the later Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE), is formed. Members will include Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison.

1890
Nikola Tesla is issued a patent for an electric generator. (US No. 428,057)

1939
The first commercial FM radio station in the United States is launched in Bloomfield, Connecticut. The station later became WDRC-FM.

1960
At the University of California Berkeley, hundreds of students congregate for the first day of protest against a visit by the House Un-American Activities Committee. Thirty-one students participating in the protest are arrested, and the Free Speech Movement is born.

1980
Bally releases the pinball game Flash Gordon. This is the first split-level pinball machine from Bally. It’s also the first machine to use the “Squawk and Talk” (S&T) sound board that would become the signature of pinball machines in the eighties, and it was only the second publicly distributed Bally machine to feature speech. Read more at the The Internet Pinball Database.

Digital Equipment, Intel, and Xerox jointly announce the Ethernet network specification.

1986
Carol Saal, Harry Saal, and Len Shustek found Network General Corporation, which will go onto become a major computer networks management solutions in Menlo Park, California. After Network General merges with McAfee in 1997, the two companies will become Network Associates, Inc.
Visit the official Network Associates website.

1987
Version 1.0 of the Turbo C programming language is released. It offers the first integrated edit-compile-run development environment for the C programming language for IBM-compatible personal computers. The software is, like many other Borland products of the time, bought from another company and branded with the “Turbo” name. Originally, Turbo C was developed by Bob Jervis as “Wizard C”. It runs on just 384KB of memory. It is capable of inline assembly with full access to C symbolic names and structures, supports all memory models, and offers optimizations for speed, size, constant folding, and jump elimination.

1988
The Jerusalem virus (also known as “BlackBox”), a variant of the Suriv virus that destroys all executable files (except for COMMAND.COM) on an infected system is triggered, crashing computers around the globe.

1991
The Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “The Host” first airs. (No. 423) In it, Dr. Crusher falls in love with Odan, only to discover that Odan is a symbiote, which must be implanted into Riker after his original host dies. Odan continues peace negotiations using Riker as a temporary host. Memory Alpha entry

The System 7 operating system for the Macintosh is released. It is the second major upgrade to the Mac OS, and it features a significant overhaul of its predecessor’s interface, new applications, and stability improvements. The most notable of all the features included in System 7 is the built-in co-operative multitasking. In System Software 6, this function was optional through the MultiFinder. System 7 also introduces aliases, similar to shortcuts that will be introduced in later versions of Microsoft Windows.

The Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode “To the Death” first airs. (No. 423) In it, Sisko and must join forces with a Jem’Hadar force to prevent renegade Jem’Hadar from using a gateway than can transport them anywhere in the galaxy. Memory Alpha entry

The Star Trek: Voyager episode “Resolutions” first airs. (No. 225) In it, Janeway and Chakotay must be quarantined on a planet after they contract a disease. Memory Alpha entry

1997
Cyrix files a lawsuit in the US District Court of the Eastern District of Texas against Intel, claiming that Intel Pentium, Pentium Pro, and Pentium II microprocessors infringe on Cyrix-owned patents related to power management and pipeline techniques.

The Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) files a lawsuit against Intel in the US District Court of Worcsester, Massachusetts, claiming that Intel’s Pentium Pro and Pentium II processors infringe on ten DEC patents related to the Alpha RISC processor.

International Business Machines (IBM) introduces the ThinkPad 380 notebook computer, featuring a 150MHz Pentium processor, 16MB RAM, a 1.08GB hard drive, a CD-ROM drive, and a built-in floppy drive. Price: US$2,199 to US$3,899

1998
Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) releases the racing game Gran Turismo for the PlayStation in the US. Visit the game’s official website. ESRB: E (Everyone)

1999
Namco Hometek announces the debut of Pac-Man World 20th Anniversary. “Pac-Man has been alive and well for 20 years”, states Michael Fischer, director of Marketing for Namco Hometek. “[Pac-Man] is now ready to face the next millennium with tougher challenges.” The game is planned for release on the PlayStation game console in October. Price: US$39.95

2001
Newspapers and café owners in Tehran claim that Iranian police have closed down more than four hundred Internet Cafes. The Cafes reportedly threaten conservative controlled media access.

2002
The eMule project is begun by Hendrik Breitkreuz (also known as “Merkur”) who is dissatisfied with the original eDonkey2000 client. Over time, more developers will join the effort. The source will first be released to the public at version 0.02 and published on SourceForge under a GNU General Public License on July 6, 2002. Visit the official EMule website.

In Greece, Ukrainian Chess Grandmaster Mikhail Gurevich begins a match with IBM’s Junior 7 that will run through May 18th. Junior will ultimately win the match with three wins and one draw.

Nintendo announces that it will begin selling a network adapter for the GameCube in the fall, as well as a dial-up modem. Visit the official Nintendo GameCube website. Price: US$35

2003
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) releases the Athlon XP 3200+ desktop processor, featuring a 400MHz system bus. Price: US$464 in 1000-unit quantities

Sony announces the PlayStation Portable (PSP) handheld video game system, featuring two 333MHz 32-bit MIPS R4000 processors, a 128-bit system bus, 8MB eDRAM memory, a 480×272 pixel 4.5-inch diagonal backlit LCD screen, an Universal Media Disc (UMD) optical disc reader, MPEG 4 video playback, built-in stereo speakers, USB 2.0 port, IrDA and wireless 802.11 LAN ports, a Sony Memory Stick data storage slot, and a rechargeable Lithium-ion battery. The system is expected to be released by the end of 2004. Visit the official PlayStation Portable website.

Sony introduces the Eye Toy accessory for the PlayStation 2 video game system. The Eye Toy is a camera that connects to the game system via a USB port. Visit the official PlayStation website.

Sony reduces the price of its current PlayStation 2 video game system inventory in the United States to US$179.99, with new systems which include the Network Adapter to be released in June at US$199. The updated PlayStation 2 system will support rewritable DVD media and include a quieter fan. Visit the official PlayStation website.

2004
Scaled Composites sets a civilian altitude record of sixty kilometers in SpaceShipOne during a test flight over Mojave Desert in the run up to the X-Prize.

2005
The Star Trek: Enterprise episode “Terra Prime” first airs. (No. 421) In it, a group of human isolationists threaten to destroy Starfleet Command unless all aliens leave Earth immediately. To secure their safety, the group’s leader takes a new born clone created by combining the DNA of Trip and T’Pol hostage. Memory Alpha entry

The final episode of the science fiction series Star Trek: Enterprise, “These Are the Voyages…,” first airs. (No. 422) In it, Commander Riker of Star Trek: The Next Generation uses a holodeck recreation of Archer’s Enterprise to observe the events leading up to the formal formation of the Federation in the hope that it will help him make a decision in the STNG episode “The Pegasus.” The series ran for ninety-eight episodes over four seasons. The series was finally canceled despite a massive fan write-in campaign due to continually declining ratings. Memory Alpha entry

2007
LG.Philips LCD announces the development of the world’s first 14.1-inch flexible color E-paper display. The device, which is the size of an A4 sheet of paper, is capable of displaying 4,096 colors that can be seen clearly from 180 degrees, even while bent. The E-paper uses a substrate that arranges Thin-Film Transistors (TFT) on metal foil. This is a second major breakthrough in E-paper for the company, which introduced the world’s first 14.1-inch black and white flexible E-paper display just one year prior. Read more at the official LG.Phillips website.

2008
Microsoft announces that Office 2008 was “selling faster than any previous version of Office for Mac in the past 19 years” and affirms “its commitment to future products for the Mac.”

MySpace wins a record judgment of $230 million against spammers under CAN-SPAM.