The Great Geek Manual

1857
The first major chess tournament, the First American Chess Congress, is held in New York. The event was organized by the American Chess Association and won by Paul Morphy.

1876
A group of public and university librarians establish the American Library Association to promote the enjoyment of reading. Visit the organization’s official website.

1889
William Kennedy Laurie Dickson, the inventor of the motion picture camera and an employee of Thomas Edison, makes the first motion picture, in which he films himself saying “Good morning, Mr Edison. How do you like this?” The motion picture is the first “sound film.” The image of the film is only about one inch wide and three-quarters of an inch high.

1908
The Ohio Art company, later manufacturer of the Etch-A-Sketch, is founded by Henry Simon Winzeler. Visit the game’s official website.

1914
Edwin H. Armstrong is granted a patent for a “Wireless Receiving System,” in which he describes his regenerative circuit, otherwise known as a feed-back circuit. (US No. 1,113,149)

1927
Warner Brothers premieres The Jazz Singer, the first motion picture with sound, at the Warner Cinema on Broadway in New York. The film uses Warner’s Vitaphone sound-on-disc system. Its soundtrack consists mainly of songs and the memorable line of dialog from Al Jolson, “Wait a minute, wait a minute, you ain’t heard nothing yet, folks.”

1941
Electric photography, which will later be called xerography, is patented by Chester Carlson.

1966
The Star Trek episode “The Enemy Within” is first airs. (No. 5) In it, a transporter mishap divides Captain Kirk into two versions of himself, one good and one evil, but neither is able to function separately for long. The episode marks the first use of the line, “He’s dead, Jim.” The phrase is coined by the episode’s author, Richard Matheson. Memory Alpha entry

1967
The Star Trek episode “Mirror, Mirror” first airs. (No. 33) In it, a transporter malfunction sends Kirk, McCoy, Scotty, and Uhura into a parallel universe where, in lieu of the Federation, a despotic Earth-centered galactic empire exists. Memory Alpha entry

1983
Lotus Development, founded by Mitch Kapor and Jonathan Sachs in 1982, goes public after recording revenues of US$12.8 million over the course of the previous twelve months. The company will become a break-out success when it releases the Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet application. Lotus 1-2-3 takes the innovative step of bypassing the IBM PC operating system for improved responsiveness that will give it an edge over its competitors. Visit the official Lotus Software website.

1987
Microsoft announces Windows 2.0 and Windows/386. Price: US$195

Microsoft announces the Microsoft Excel spreadsheet application for Microsoft Windows 2.0, the first major application for Windows.

1994
Version 1.1.52 of the Linux operating system is released. Visit the official Linux website.

1995
Didier Queloz and Michael Mayor announce the first discovery of a planet orbiting a star similar to the Sun, 51 Pegasi. The planet is about one hundred sixty times the mass of the Earth.

1996
Intel releases the 200Mhz version of the Pentium Processor.

1997
American biology professor Stanley B. Prusiner wins the Nobel Prize for medicine for discovering “Prions,” which he describes as “an entirely new genre of disease-causing agents.”

Michael Dell suggests that Apple be shut down. Gil Amelio had been ousted and Apple is searching for its next CEO. Steve Jobs was asked to to fill the position, but many felt that Jobs wasn’t an appropriate choice, Dell among them. When he was asked at an industry conference what he thought Apple should do, Dell replied, “What would I do? I’d shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders.” Whether the response is a sincere educated opinion or competitive bravado isn’t clear. By Friday, January 13, 2006, Dell’s US$71.97 billion market cap is exceeded by Apple’s US$72.13 billion market cap, and Apple’s performance will continue to significantly surpass Dell’s.

The science fiction series Earth: Final Conflict premieres with the episode “Decision” in Canada and the US. The series was created by Gene Roddenberry, but it wasn’t put into production until after his death. In the episode, William Boone is offered a job working for the Taelons; he refuses at first, but after his wife dies in an automobile crash, he agrees. Boone is contacted by the Resistance. The series will run for one hundred ten episodes over five seasons. TV.com entry

1998
At the Sega New Challenge Conference in Tokyo, Sega debuts the Dreamcast video game system.

Creative Labs lowers the price of the 12MB 3D Blaster Voodoo2, a graphics accelerator card, to US$199.99 minus a US$50 mail-in rebate. The 8MB version is repriced to US$109.99 minus a US$30 rebate.

Intel announced the 450MHz version of its Pentium II Xeon processor, designed for use in dual-processor workstations and servers.

Jeff Goldblum appears in two new thirty-second television commercials to promote Apple’s new iMac computers. The first of the spots airs during Home Improvement on ABC.

Microsoft releases Visual J++ 6.0 Java development software. Price: US$109 (Standard Edition) or US$549 (Professional Edition)

The science fiction television series Seven Days premieres on the
United Paramount Network (UPN) network in the US with the episode “Pilot, Part I.” It will run for three seasons and a total of sixty-six episodes. The series follows a secret branch of the United States’ National Security Agency who have developed a time traveling device based upon alien technology found after the legendary crash at Roswell. The Chronosphere, or Backstep Sphere, sends one human being back in time seven days to avert disasters. The series will run for sixty-six episodes over three seasons. TV.com entry

1999
Barnes & Noble, Inc. reveals plans to acquire Texas-based Babbage’s Etc. for US$215 million. Babbage’s operates 495 stores under the names of Babbage’s, GameStop, and Software, Etc.

Michael Vatis of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) tells the United States Congress that a series of raids launched against Defense Department computers have allegedly originated from Russia. Vatis is the director of the National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC) and leading an ongoing investigation code-named Moonlight Maze that involves pertinent US agencies and international counterparts.

The United States Justice Department reveals that it has spent US$12.6 million in total litigation expenses in the antitrust case against the Microsoft Corporation since 1989.

Yahoo! launches Yahoo! Mexico.

2000
Sony releases the Vaio PictureBook laptop computer in Japan, the first with a Transmeta Crusoe processor.

2003
Andrew Garcia, age 38, a former employee of Viewsonic, guilty to one count of accessing a protected computer and recklessly causing damage. Garcia accessed Viewsonic’s computer system on April 14, 2002 and deleted critical files on one of the servers that he had maintained while he was employed by the company. The loss of these files rendered the server inoperative, and Viewsonic’s Taiwan office was unable to access important data for several days. He is sentenced to one year in prison.

Charter Communications becomes the first cable internet provider to challenge the RIAA use of provision 512(h) of the Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act (OCILLA), which deals with identify infringers, when it files for a motion to quash the subpoenas filed by the RIAA to identify one hundred fifty of its customers. Although Charter Communications will initially lose this motion and turn over the identities of the requested customers, a later appeal will rule that the motion to quash should have been upheld.

The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet has today decided to award the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly to Paul C Lauterbur and Peter Mansfield for their discoveries concerning “magnetic resonance imaging.” Read the press release at The Nobel Prize website.

2004
At the Bill Graham Auditorium in San Francisco, California, the World Cyber Games 2004 Grand Final championship games are held, over five days. Thirty thousand spectators watch about seven hundred gamers in teams from fifty-nine countries compete. The Netherlands team wins the most points. The Korean team wins the most medals.

Google launches Google Book Search, a service that searches the full text of books that Google scans, converts to text using optical character recognition, and stores in its digital database. Visit the official Google Book Search website.

Microsoft releases version 7 of the Virtual PC suite for Macintosh computers. The virtualization application emulates a Pentium processor environment to allow Windows applications and operating systems to run on Macs. Visit the official Virtual PC website. Price: US$249 bundled with Windows XP Professional

2005
The High Court of Australia rules that it is legal to install modification chips in a PlayStation 2 that allows the console to play imported and copied games. Sony Computer Entertainment originally filed a lawsuit against Sydney retailer Eddy Stevens in 2001 for selling unauthorized copies of games, and selling and installing modification chips for the PlayStation 2.

Symantec releases a security notice on the first virus known to target Sony’s PlayStation Portable, the “Trojan.PSPBrick”. The virus is disguised as a PSP-hacking tool, but in actuality, it delete key system files on the device, rendering it in operable.

2006
NASA releases close-up photos taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter of the planet Mars revealing clues to its oceanic past. Read more at the Times Online.

2008
Complete Genomics announces that it will offer complete human gene sequencing for five thousand dollars in the coming spring, 1/20th the current price. The company predicts that the sharp reduction in the price of its services will revolutionize genetic research. Read more at ABC News.