The Great Geek Manual

1879
Thomas Edison perfects the first commercially practical incandescent light bulb using a filament of carbonized cotton sewing thread at his laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey. His first new bulb lasts approximately 13½ hours before burning out, but in subsequent tests, the life of the bulb in increased to forty hours. The idea of electric lighting isn’t new, several people had worked on and even developed forms of electric lighting, such the arc lamp. However, no current light method is practical for residential use. Edison set out to design a lamp with soft light that was lightweight and economical as simple to operate as gas lamps but without the foul smell. The discovery comes after Edison tested over six thousand vegetable fibers, including bamboo, baywood, boxwood, hickory, cedar, and flax, for suitability. It required eighteen months of work, US$40,000, and 1,200 experiments.

1915
American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) and Western Electric Company (WE) transmit the first transatlantic message over radio telephone. The call is placed by B. Webb of AT&T from Arlington, Virginia, to the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France through relay points in Canada. The test of radiotelephony represents a significant advance in technology brought about by the development of vacuum-tube transmitters and receivers, which had previously been limited to a range of roughly ten miles. In addition to conversation, the capabilities of the connection are also demonstrated with music.

1918
Margaret Owen of New York City sets a world typing record of 170 words per minute on a manual typewriter.

1925
The Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company publicly demonstrates the first photoelectric cell at the Electrical Show at Grand Central Palace in New York. The sensitivity of the photocell to light is used to count objects as they interrupt a beam of light. The device is also used to open doors as a person or car approaches in a more practical demonstration.

1949
Chinese computer engineer An Wang files a patent for a magnetic ferrite core memory entitled “pulse transfer controlling devices.” Two years later An Wang will found Wang Laboratories.

1963
The first trimline telephone in the US is installed by the Michigan Bell Telephone Company. It will be released commercially on August 2, 1965 for a monthly charge of US$1. A dial and hang-up button are integrated into the hand piece to makes it unnecessary to use the base to dial a call.

1976
Target Books publishes the Dr. Who novel Doctor Who and the Planet of the Daleks by Terrance Dicks as a paperback. (ISBN-10 0426112520) Read more about the book.

1977
20th Century Fox releases the sci-fi film Damnation Alley, directed by Jack Smight and starring Jan-Michael Vincent, George Peppard, Dominique Sanda, and Paul Winfield, to US theaters. It is very loosely based on the Roger Zelazny book of the same name. In it, a small group of survivors at a military installation who survived World War 3 attempt to drive across the desolate wasteland to where they hope more survivors are living. Hopefully their specially built vehicles will protect them against the freakish weather mutated plant and animal life and other dangers along the way. The film is memorable for the Landmaster vehicle featured in it. The vehicle with a unique rotating twelve wheel assembly was custom-built for the film at a cost of US$300,000. Read more about the Landmaster. The film was repeatedly delayed in post-production due to difficulties superimposing optical effects on the sky to simulate post apocalyptic atmospheric conditions. Fox only pushed the film through after the enormous box office success of Star Wars. IMDB listing MPAA Rating: PG Running time: 1 hr 35 min

1982
Target Books publishes the Dr. Who novel Logopolis by Christopher H. Bidmead as a paperback. (ISBN-10 0426201493) Read more about the book.

1983
The length of the meter is redefined by the international body Conférence Générale des Poids et Mesures (General Conference on Weights and Measures) to make the measure more accurate. Originally, the measure was one ten-millionth of the distance from the North Pole to the equator. Following the conference, the meter is re-defined as the distance that light travels in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second.

1986
Nintendo releases Pro Wrestling for the Famicom in Japan.

US President Ronald Reagan signs the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 into law. The act extends government restrictions on wire taps from telephone systems to electronic mail, but it the assumption that the law also protects the nation’s bulletin board systems (BBS’s) rapidly spreads. Soon sysops find themselves entangled in a whole new set of liabilities with little to no guidance.

1988
The independently produced horror film Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, directed by Dwight H. Little and starring Donald Pleasence, Danielle Harris, Ellie Cornell, Beau Starr, and George P. Wilbur, is released to 1,679 US theaters. In it, Michael Myers escapes from Richmond Mental Institute while being transferred to stalk his niece, Jamie Lloyd. Doctor Loomis follows him back to Haddonfield, and attempts to stop him once and for all. Produced on a budget of US$5 million, the film will gross US$6,831,250 domestically in its opening weekend. IMDB listing MPAA Rating: R Running Time: 1 hr 28 min

1991
The Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Disaster” first airs. (No. 505) The Enterprise is without power, trapping Picard in a turbolift with three children. Command of the Enterprise falls to Counselor Troi, who is forced to make a difficult decision. Memory Alpha entry

1992
In the case of Sega versus Accolade, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals dismisses Sega’s appeal of the earlier August 28th ruling in favor of Accolade. The case sets a precedent under which copyright does not extend to content required by another system to operate where the content was deemed non-expressive. It was a landmark case for the software industry.

1993
Apple Computer introduces the Color Classic II, also known as the Performa 275, which features the case of the Macintosh Color Classic with twice the RAM and a LC 550 logicboard and twice the RAM.

Apple Computer introduces the Mac LC III+, also known as the Performa 460, Performa 466, or Performa 467. The system features the 33 MHz Motorola 68030 processor and up to 36MB RAM.

Apple Computer introduces the Macintosh Quadra 605, featuring a 25 MHz Motorola 68LC040 processor, 4 – 132 MB RAM, a 160 or 230 MB hard drive, and a 1.4MB SuperDrive. The systems will also feature the thin “pizza box” style case, which stands under three-inches tall. Because Apple uses the low-cost 68LC040 CPU, this is the first Quadra to sell for under a thousand dollars.

The same day that Apple introduces a number of new computers, John Sculley announces that he will accept a position as chairman and CEO of Spectrum Information Technologies for a salary of US$1 million. Sculley made the decision to join to thirty-eight employee firm after a demonstration of its AXCELL cellular modem.

1996
The 1996 Microprocessor Forum is held, over four days in San Jose, California.

At the Microprocessor Forum, Exponential Technology debuts the 533MHz X704 PowerPC compatible processor for the Macintosh OS and Windows NT microcomputers.

At the Microprocessor Forum, Motorola and International Business Machines (IBM) announce the 240MHz PowerPC 603e microprocessor.

1997
Harmony publishes the sci-fi comedy novel Douglas Adams’s Starship Titanic by Terry Jones as a hardcover. (ISBN-10: 0609601032) Visit the book’s official website. Length: 246 pages

The United States Justice Department files a motion in federal court to hold Microsoft in contempt of court for allegedly violating a July 1994 consent decree by continuing to force computer manufacturers to distribute Internet Explorer with Windows ‘95. The Justice department asks the court to hold Microsoft in contempt and to impose a one million dollar a day fine on the company until it stops bundling the browser into the operating system. Microsoft responds by stating they have the right to integrate products and the browser has become an integral part of the system.

1998
At the Networld+Interop trade show, Microsoft releases the Windows NT 4.0 Service Pack 4.

Nintendo releases the Game Boy Color portable video game system in Japan. The system features a 2.1 MHz processor and 32KB RAM. It can display 10, 32, or 56 colors simultaneously from a palette of 32,000 colors. Weight is 6.7 ounces.

2002
At approximately 4:45pm, an estimated six thousand computers launch a distributed denial-of-service attack (DDoS attack) on the thirteen root servers that control the majority of the Internet’s traffic in what some called “the biggest ever hacking attack on the Internet.” During the attack, the servers were bombarded with thirty-to-forty times their usual amount of traffic, causing periods of zero-response in seven of the thirteen servers and severely diminish capacity in an eighth server. Many of the internet’s top sites were rendered unresponsive by the attack, including Amazon.com, eBay, and Yahoo! The incident is widely considered to be the most damaging DDOS attack in history.

2003
Images of Eris, the largest known dwarf planet, are taken and subsequently used in its discovery by Michael E. Brown, Chad Trujillo, and David L. Rabinowitz.

2004
Tor Books publishes the fantasy novel The Wizard by Gene Wolfe as a hardcover. (ISBN-10: 0765312018) It is the second book in The Wizard Knight series. Length: 480 pages

2005
Universal Pictures releases the sci-fi horror film Doom, directed by Andrzej Bartkowiak and starring Karl Urban, The Rock, Ben Daniels, Rosamund Pike, and Yao Chin, to 3,044 US theaters. It is based on the video game series of the same title. In it, something has gone wrong in a research facility on Mars, and the staff are transforming into something unimaginable. All research has ceased and the facility has been quarantined. Dr. Samantha Grimm has called in an elite squad of soldiers led by Sarge that includes Samantha’s twin brother, John Grimm. As the team advance through the facility, they are picked off one-by-one. Produced on a budget of US$60 million, the film will gross US$15,488,870 domestically in its opening weekend. Visit the film’s official website. IMDB listing MPAA Rating: R Running Time: 1 hr 40 min

2006
The first version of Simple Instant Messenger (SIM), version 0.9.4.1, is released for Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows. SIM is a free software multiprotocol instant messaging application. based on the Qt library. It supports five protocols, including: Oscar (for AIM and ICQ), Jabber, LiveJournal, MSN, and Yahoo!. Visit the application’s official website.