The Great Geek Manual

1893
First public demonstration of the Edison-Dickson Kinetoscope is given by Thomas Edison to an audience of about four hundred people at the Department of Physics of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences in New York. The first demonstration features moving images of a blacksmith and his two assistants passing a bottle between themselves as the forge a piece of iron. Each filmstrip has seven hundred images and each image is shown for 1/92 of a second. The event will be reported in the May 20, 1893 edition of Scientific American.

1896
R.W. Paul’s Theatrograph film program is shown at the Empire Theatre of Varieties in Johannesburg. Paul’s first film show is riddled with technical problems that will be resolved by the time that his Theatrograph projector makes its public debut at the Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly. Read more about Paul and his contributions to film at ScreenOnline.

1948
The first edition of TV Forecast, a periodical listing of television schedules, is first published in Chicago by Les Vihon and three partners. It is the forerunner of the TV Guide, which will debut on April 3, 1953.

1961
The science fiction anthology Amazing Adventures #3 is published, becoming the first comic book ever labeled with the “Marvel Comics” brand name. It bears the small “MC” logo in a box on its cover. Dated August 1961, it was published May 9, 1961. The cover features art drawn by Jack Kirby.

Newton Minow, the newly appointed chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), makes what will come to be known as the “The Wasteland Speech,” in which he calls television a “vast wasteland.” In the speech, he famously says: “But when television is bad, nothing is worse. I invite you to sit down in front of your television set when your station goes on the air and stay there without a book, magazine, newspaper, profit and-loss sheet or rating book to distract you–and keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that you will observe a vast wasteland.” Read the speech in its entirety at Janda.org or at Terra Media.

1964
The Radio Atlanta pirate radio ship, moored off the coast of Essex, England, goes on the air. In July, it will merge with radio Caroline.

1973
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer releases the science fiction film Soylent Green, directed by Richard Fleischer and starring Charlton Heston is released to theaters. The film follows a New York City cop through a distopian future in which the world is over populated and food is scarce. IMDB Entry Running Time: 1 hr 37 mins

1986
Infocom first releases Trinity, an interactive fiction computer game, for IBM and Macintosh compatible computers to the public.

1988
The COMDEX spring trade show is held in Atlanta, Georgia.

The Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Conspiracy” first airs. (No. 125) In the episode, the strange behavior of high-ranking officers leads Picard to uncover an alien conspiracy within Starfleet. Memory Alpha entry

1989
Apple Computer announces the details of its System 7 operating system for the Macintosh.

International Business Machines (IBM) introduces the IBM PS/2 Model 55 SX computer, featuring a 16MHz 80386SX processor, MCA slots, a 30MB hard drive, 2MB DRAM, a 1.44MB 3.5-inch floppy drive, a VGA, and a 13-inch color monitor. Price: US$3,895 or US$4,295 with a 60MB hard drive

International Business Machines (IBM) introduces the IBM PS/2 Model P70 386 computer, featuring MCA slots, a 20MHz 80386 processor, and a 60MB hard drive. Price: US$7,695 or US$8,295 with a 120MB hard drive Weight: 20lbs

1990
May 7 through Wednesday, May 9, the United States Secret Service and the Arizona Organized Crime and Racketeering Bureau execute Operation Sundevil, raiding the homes and businesses of alleged computer hackers in Cincinnati, Detroit, Los Angeles, Miami, Newark, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Richmond, Tucson, San Diego, San Jose, and San Francisco. The Operation will later come to be seen as largely a public-relations stunt. Read more in Bruce Sterling’s The Hacker Crackdown

1993
The Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode “Progress” first airs. (No. 115) In the episode, Kira deals with a stubborn farmer whose home is slated for destruction. Memory Alpha entry

1994
The Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Emergence” first airs. (No. 723) In the episode, The Enterprise develops a mind of its own. Memory Alpha entry

1996
Apple Computer informs its dealers that defective chips are the reason a number of their PowerBooks, Power Macs, and Performa computers have been freezing up. They were also notified of AC problems causing cracks in the PowerBook laptops. Although Apple claims the problem with the defective ROM/cache and clock chips is a “business as usual” situation, eight thousand Apple distributors are notified with a promise to repair the problems free of charge over a seven year period.

Linus Torvalds decides to adopt Tux the penguin as a mascot for Linux.

The Securities and Exchange Commission charges six people with insider trading. Those charged include, William H. Lane III (Intuit’s chief financial officer), Kathleen Lane (his wife), and their friends and family members. The alleged trading took place after Lane confided in his wife information about a pending Microsoft buyout in October 1994 before it was publicly announced.

1997
Columbia Pictures releases the science fiction action film The Fifth Element, directed by Luc Besson and starring Bruce Willis, Gary Oldman, Milla Jovovich, Ian Holm, and Chris Tucker to 2,500 US theaters. Produced on a budget of US$80 million, it will gross US$17,031,345 domestically in its opening weekend. IMDB listing (MPAA Rating: PG-13) Running Time: 2 hrs 6 mins

Umax Computer announces the SuperMac C500LT/140 computer, featuring Macintosh compatibility, a 140 MHz PowerPC 603e processor, an 8X CD-ROM drive, a 1.2GB hard drive, a floppy drive, and two PCI slots. Price: US$999

2001
The Homepage computer virus, which is described as an “email worm,” strikes thousands of Microsoft Outlook users worldwide.

Microsoft announces that their new Windows XP operating system will go on sale Thursday, October 25. Microsoft pledges to spend “hundreds of millions” of dollars to marketing the new system.

The Star Trek: Voyager episode “Homestead” first airs. (No. 723) In the episode, the crew of Voyager is surprised to detect a Talaxian settlement hidden within an asteroid belt, years away from the nearest Talaxian territory. After lending the lending the people of the settlement the help they needed to defend themselves, Neelix leaves the crew. Memory Alpha entry

2002
Sony announces that, as of May 5, it has shipped thirty million PlayStation 2 systems worldwide: 11.3 million in North America, 9.9 million in Japan, and 8.8 million in Europe.

2004
Blogger introduces a major redesign, adding features including CSS-compliant templates, individual archive pages for posts, comments, and posting by email.

2005
Konami of Japan files a complaint with the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, asking for an injunction to prevent Roxor Games from selling their arcade cabinet conversion kits, along with payment of damages, based on “Konami’s patent and trademark rights in its Dance Dance Revolution arcade game” and unfair competition law. Konami alleges that the refitting of arcade cabinets “has been done in an infringing and unfair way.” This did not affect the PlayStation 2 game, which will be released as planned.

Microsoft releases Windows Mobile 5.0, at Microsoft’s Mobile and Embedded Developers Conference 2005 in Las Vegas. The system was codenamed “Magneto” during development. It will be first offered on the Dell Axim x51.

New York University’s Stern School of Business posts an article announcing that they have begun using an open source e-mail client.

2006
At a press conference in Los Angeles before the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), Nintendo announces the name of its next-generation console system, Wii. Nintendo unveils the system’s conventional controller and demonstrates The Legend of Zelda and Super Mario Galaxy. Nintendo also announces that it has sold sixteen million Nintendo DS systems worldwide.

The Deleting Online Predators Act (H.R. 5319) of 2006 (DOPA) is brought before the United States House of Representatives by Republican Pennsylvania Representative (R-PA) Mike Fitzpatrick. The proposed act would amend the Communications Act of 1934, requiring schools and libraries that receive E-rate funding to protect minors from online predators in the absence of parental supervision when using “Commercial Social Networking Websites” and “Chat Rooms.” The act would prohibit schools and libraries from providing access to these types of websites to minors. The act also requires the institutions to be capable of disabling the restrictions for “use by an adult or by minors with adult supervision to enable access for educational purposes.” Read the full text of this bill and its variations at the website of the Library of Congress.

Firefly episodes are added to the iTunes Music Store for download as part of the FOX Television Classics collection, along with Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Lost in Space. The Buffy episodes are initially listed in the order FOX originally aired them, but due to an overwhelming response fans, the episodes will later be re-listed in the order in which creator Joss Whedon originally intended.

Microsoft announces that Halo 3, Bungie Studio’s next installment in the Halo franchise, will be released for the Xbox 360 in 2007.

The staff of Planetboredom.net, a website that allows its users to submit short movies, games, and pictures for others to view, receives its first email. The message is from Ava Paquette, a woman with a long history of legal campaigns against the enemies of Scientology, demanding that the site remove a video the staff had made during a free screening of “The Story of Book One,” a film about Dianetics, at the Toronto Church of Scientology on May 2nd. They refused to remove the content and were contacted soon after by their web host. The host had also received a threatening letter, and had decided to take down the video. There were no shortage of volunteers to resume the hosting, and the video’s downtime was only about an hour long.

The tenth annual Webby Awards are presented. Google wins seven awards. Winners include: Activism: The World Bank’s YouThink!, Art: Off the Map , Best Home/Welcome Page: My Yahoo!, Best Navigation/Structure: Flickr, Best Practices: Google Maps, Best Visual Design: Big Ideas Come From Big Pencils, Celebrity/Fan: The Leaky Cauldron, Games: Stackopolis, Humor: The Onion, NetArt: PostSecret, Personal Website: Stevensebring.com, and Social Networking: JDate. Visit the official Webby Awards website.

Version Alpha 2 of the NeoOffice office suite is released for the Power PC.

Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures announce that they will co-finance a live-action movie based in the Warcraft universe.