The Great Geek Manual

1976
Paul Allen resigns from Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS) to join Microsoft full time.

1977
Chiron, the farthest known asteroid is discovered by Charles T. Kowal. It will later be reclassified as a centaur, a type of planetoid.

1978
Microsoft establishes its first international sales office in Japan. Microsoft appoints ASCII Microsoft in Tokyo, which will later be known as Microsoft Japan, as its exclusive sales agent for the Far East. Kazuhiko Nishi, founder and publisher of Japan’s popular ASCII magazine, is appointed to organize the new operation.

1979
The Data Processing Division (DPD) of International Business Machines (IBM) announces two new models of the IBM 3033 processor, the Group N processors.

1981
November 1 is the last day of the first Atari Coin-Op US$50,000 World Championships at the Chicago Expo Center. The event, managed by Tournament Games, Inc., has been a dismal failure. Somewhere between ten thousand and fifteen thousand coin-op players had been anticipated, but only 250 players actually showed up. Eric Ginner won a US$12,000 cash prize for his US$60 entry fee and Ok-Soo Han won US$4,000 in cash and prizes. Among the contestants is actor Matthew Laborteaux who plays Albert on the television series Little House on the Prairie.

1982
According to Twin Galaxies, Bill Mitchell scores a record-setting 874,300 points playing the Nintendo arcade game Donkey Kong at the Twin Galaxies arcade in Ottumwa, Iowa. Visit the official Twin Galaxies website.

According to Twin Galaxies, Bill Mitchell scores a record-setting 957,300 points playing the Nintendo arcade game Donkey Kong Jr. at the Twin Galaxies arcade in Ottumwa, Iowa. Visit the official Twin Galaxies website.

1983
In New York, International Business Machines (IBM) announces the IBM PCjr (“PC junior”), featuring an Intel 8088 CPU, 64KB RAM, a detached keyboard, two cartridge slots, a joystick, a light pen, and a serial port. The PC-DOS 2.1 operating system is available as an option. Code-name: Peanut Price: US$669 or US$1,269 with a 5.25-inch floppy drive and 128KB RAM

1984
Keytran, which is owned by Centel, Honeywell, and the Chicago Sun-Times, is renamed “Keycom,” and the newly renamed company launches its commercial Videotex service, one of the earliest consumer interactive medias.

Toshiba announces its development of a 1-Megabit RAM chip.

1985
Microsoft releases its Windows 1.01 operating system on five 360KB capacity 5¼-inch floppy disks. The system operates on MS-DOS v5.0.

Quantum Link (Q-Link), an online service for chat rooms, e-mail, games, and other programs for Commodore 64 and 128 computers, goes into operation. Quantum Link will later be renamed to America Online in 1994.

1987
Microsoft releases the Windows 2.0 operating system.

1994
George Lucas leaves the day-to-day operations of his film making business. While on sabbatical, he will begin writing the prequel trilogy to the original Star Wars trilogy.

Mosaic Communications files a lawsuit against Spyglass, Inc. and the University of Illinois, seeking a declaration of whether or not Mosaic Netscape software infringes on browser code developed at the university and licensed through Spyglass.

1995
At the ANA Hotel in San Francisco, Intel formally introduces the Pentium Pro processor, with speeds of 150 to 200MHz. The processors can achieve 440 MIPs and incorporates 5.5 million transistors, nearly 2,400 times as many as the first microprocessor, the 4004. Bus speeds of the new Socket 8 interface are 60 MHz (150, 180 MHz processor), and 66 MHz (166, 200 MHz processor). The 150MHz version is manufactured using a 0.5 micron BiCMOS process where the other processors employ a 0.35 micron process. Price: US$974 (150 MHz, 256KB cache), US$1,682 (166 MHz, 512KB cache), US$1,075 (180 MHz, 256KB cache), US$1,225 (200 MHz, 256KB cache), and US$1,989 (200 MHz, 512KB cache)

1996
The Digital equipment Corporation (DEC) files a suit against Altavista Technology, Inc. seeking remedies and financial damages for alleged infringements against the AltaVista trademark on their World Wide Web homepage.

Matsushita (Panasonic) and Toshiba release the first DVD video players in Japan. At the time of their release, there were only three software titles are available for the players, and another twenty titles were expected to be released by month’s end. The two models cost ¥79,800 (US$720) and ¥98,000 (US$885).

The Dual Analog Controller is first introduced at the PlayStation Expo 96-97, which is held November 1 to November 4.

The Toshiba Corporation launches the Digital Video Disk (DVD) in Japan. The new system is speculated to someday replace compact discs and video tape.

1999
Motorola, Inc. introduces the first microchip that works with worldwide types of cellular phones, the DSP56690.

Yahoo! Auctions surpasses a record one million simultaneous daily auctions.

2000
Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) announces at the tenth annual Toy and Interactive Entertainment Conference in New York City that over twenty thousand retailers sold a half million PlayStation 2 game consoles in the first day of its launch in the United States. In addition, approximately 1.3 million units of software are sold with a software-to-hardware ratio of between 1.5 to 2.8 pieces for each console. About one million peripheral devices are also sold.

2002
U.S. District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly conditionally accepts a proposed settlement between Microsoft and the U.S. Justice Department.

ViewSonic releases the ViewSonic Pocket PC V35 handheld computer, featuring a 300MHz Intel PXA250 XScale processor, an MMC and Secure Digital slot, a stylus, and a 240×320 pixel display. The battery powers the unit for about ten hours. Price: US$299 Weight: 4.2oz

2003
The 2002 Homeland Security Act, passed in reaction to the September 11 attacks goes into effect. The Act creates the United States Department of Homeland Security in the single largest governmental reorganization since the creation of the Department of Defense. It also mandates sentences of twenty years to life for those found guilty of using a computer to inflict death. Read the act in its entirety.

2004
Sony begins selling a smaller version of the PlayStation 2 video game system in the United States and Europe. Model SCPH-70000CB is 2.8 cm thick, includes a network adapter and DVD remote, but excludes hard drive support. Price: US$149.99

2005
The discovery of two possible additional moons around Pluto, designated “S/2005 P1″ and “S/2005 P2,” is announced.

A software glitch caused by recent system upgrade brings trading to a halt on the Tokyo Stock Exchange between 9 am and 1:30 pm local time. The malfunction is the most serious to effect the exchange since 1999, when floor trading was stopped so that the all-electronic trading system could be installed.

2006
Dell begins offering notebook computers with AMD processors, starting with the Inspiron 1501.

Microsoft releases its Windows Embedded CE 6.0 operating system for consumer electronic devices, such as mobile phones.

2007
The popular bittorrent index Mininova surpasses three billion torrent downloads. On May 28, 2008, Mininova will surpass five billion downloads. The site’s three million daily users download over ten million torrents a day, according to the site’s administrators. Visit the official Mininova blog.

Time magazine names the iPhone its choice for Invention of the Year.

2008
Bittorrent tracker The Pirate Bay reaches reaches a milestone of twenty million unique peers for the first time.

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