The Great Geek Manual

1858
George Mary Searle discovers the asteroid 55 Pandora.

1960
Japan begins transmitting regular color television programming using the NTSC system. It’s the third country to adopt the system after Cuba and the United States.

1983
Infocom publishes Release 18 of the interactive fiction game The Witness for personal computers. It is a murder mystery written in the ZIL programming language.

1984
Alec Jeffreys discovers Genetic fingerprinting accidentally while studying genetic markers across generations as a method of tracking patterns of inherited illness in families.

1988
Home Vision Entertainment releases the documentary Comic Book Confidential, directed by Ron Mann and starring Robert Crumb, Will Eisner, William M. Gaines, Jack Kirby, Stan Lee, and Frank Miller. The Canadian documentary film surveys the history of comic books in the US from the thirties through the eighties and features interviews with some of the foremost names in the industry. The film will receive the prestigious 1989 Genie Award for Best Documentary. It is also one of the first films to ever be released in CD-ROM format for home computer viewing. Visit the film’s official website.

1990
The first Internet search engine Archie is launched. Archie is an index of FTP archives created by by Alan Emtage, Bill Heelan, and Mike Parker at McGill University in Montreal, Canada.

1991
The Gopher protocol, a distributed document search and retrieval network protocol designed for the Internet, is announced by Paul Lindner and Mark P. McCahill of the University of Minnesota.

1994
The animated comedy series The Tick premieres on the FOX network. The series parodies the superhero genre, following a group of absurd superheroes who defend a city, simply called “The City.” It is based on a 1988 comic book series created by Ben Edlund. The series will run for three seasons and thirty-six episodes, the last of which will air November 30, 1996. TV.com entry

1995
The Autumn European Computer Trade Show (ECTS) is held September 10 – 12 at the Olympia in London, England. The event is attended by guests.

Mindscape Inc. releases the roleplaying game Entomorph: Plague of the Darkfall for Windows 3.1. It is a sequel to World of Aden: Thunderscape.

1996
Capcom releases the versus fighting game X-Men vs. Street Fighter to arcades in Europe.

Electronic Arts releases Crusader: No Regret for MS-DOS in the US. ESRB: T (Teen)

The Board of Directors of the Boston Computer Society (BCS) unanimously votes to halt operations of the not-for-profit operation. The group, with offices in Cambridge and Waltham, Massachusetts, is near to celebrating twenty years of bringing together computer owners to share their combined knowledge base. BCS, founded in 1977 by thirteen year old Jonathan Rotenberg, is thought to be the world’s oldest and largest computer organization. In 1989, the group reached a peak of thirty-one thousand members.

1998
Acclaim Entertainment releases the Mortal Kombat and Mortal Kombat II video games for the Game Boy in Japan.

Imagine Media announces a new bi-weekly publication called Games Business targeting industry decision-makers and leaders. Colin Campbell is named editor-in-chief.

Sony Computer Entertainment of America (SCEA) releases the platform game Spyro the Dragon for the PlayStation in the US. Visit the game’s official website. ESRB: E (Everyone)

1999
America Online, Inc. (AOL) states that William Raduchel, chief strategy officer of Sun Microsystems, Inc. will be taking over the position of chief technology officer for AOL. The position was held for a short time by Marc Andreessen, co-founder of Netscape.

Artisan Entertainment releases the horror film Stir of Echoes, directed by David Koepp and starring Kevin Bacon, Kathryn Erbe, Zachary David Cope, Illeana Douglas, Jennifer Morrison, and Til Schweiger, to 1,888 US theaters. It is based on the novel of the same name by Richard Matheson. The film is released a month after the similarly-themed The Sixth Sense, and it is poorly received for the comparison with the critically-acclaimed film by both audiences and critics. Produced on a budget of US$13 million, the film will gross US$5,811,664 domestically in its opening weekend. IMDB listing MPAA Rating: R Running Time: 1 hrs 39 min

Sega of America reports earnings of US$97,904,618.09 within the first twenty-four hours of launching Dreamcast in the United States. According to Sega, the “phenomenal” results through fifteen thousand retail stores in North America has compelled them to revise original Dreamcast sales forecasts of 1.5 million by Friday, March 31, 2000.

The United States Department of Justice files court papers stating that the testimony of Microsoft’s Chairman, William Gates, in the company’s antitrust trial was “bizarre” and “not credible.”

Virgin Interactive releases the strategy roleplaying game Kagero: Deception II for the PlayStation in Europe.

2000
Driver: You Are the Wheelman is released for the personal computer in the US.

2001
Namco releases the roleplaying game Tales of Eternia as Tales of Destiny II for the PlayStation in North America. It was retitled in North America to avoid infringing on Mattel’s Masters of the Universe copyright. It is the third main game of the Tales RPG series. Visit the game’s official website. ESRB: T (Teen)

2002
Apple Computer announces that computers shipping in January will boot to Mac OS X only.

EA Games releases the first person shooter Battlefield 1942 for personal computers in North America. Visit the game’s official website. ESRB: T (Teen)

Infogrames releases version 1 of the racing game Grand Prix 4 for Windows. Visit the game’s official website.

Version 8.4 of the Tcl/Tk programming language.

2003
Adobe Systems releases the Dreamweaver MX 2004 HTML editor. It is the seventh version of the application. Visit the application’s official website.

Capcom releases the roleplaying game Breath of Fire IV for Windows in Europe. Visit the game’s official website. ELSPA: 11+

The Star Trek: Enterprise episode “The Xindi” first airs. (No. 301) In it, the mission against the Xindi starts off with Archer and Malcolm making a visit to a mining facility in order to track down a Xindi. Memory Alpha entry

2004
EA Games releases the racing game Burnout 3: Takedown for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox in Europe. Visit the game’s official website. PEGI: 3+

Eidos Interactive releases the third person shooter Shellshock: Nam ‘67 for personal computers, the PlayStation 2, and Xbox in North America. Visit the game’s official website. ESRB: M (Mature)

The first public beta of Sabbu, a program used to time subtitles for video. Visit the application’s SourceForge page.

Screen Gems releases the horror film Resident Evil: Apocalypse, directed by Alexander Witt and starring Milla Jovovich, Sienna Guillory, Oded Fehr, Mike Epps, Sandrine Holt, Thomas Kretschmann, Jared Harris, and Iain Glen, to 3,284 US theaters. The film is based on the Resident Evil video game series. Produced on a budget of US$43 million, the film will gross US$23,036,273 in its opening weekend. IMDB listing MPAA Rating: R Running Time: 1 hrs 34 min

Ubisoft releases Myst IV: Revelation for the Mac OS X and Windows in the UK. It is the fourth installment in the Myst series. Myst IV is the first game for PC released exclusively on a DVD-ROM format. While previous games had been released on DVD-ROM in limited numbers, it was usually release after a CD-ROM version. In a similar pioneering move, the original Myst was released exclusively on CD-ROM at a time when most games were released on multiple floppy disks. In the game, Atrus calls the stranger back once more to Tomahna, this time to help him decide what to do with his sons, Sirrus and Achenar. It has been twenty years since their imprisonment, and Atrus wonders if that has been long enough for them to have repented for the crimes they committed in the original Myst. After an explosion knocks the Stranger unconscious, he realizes that Yeesha, Atrus’s daughter, has disappeared. While searching for her, the Stranger uncovers the two prison books, Spire and Haven, in which Sirrus and Achenar were imprisoned twenty years ago. The Stranger explores these ages and uncovers the truth about Sirrus and Achenar, and must save Yeesha from their horrid plan that they had set in motion long ago on Serenia. Visit the game’s official website. PEGI: 7+

2006
According to Twin Galaxies, Gary Whelan scores a record-setting 1,114,550 points on Namco’s Galaxian arcade game at Apollo Amusements in Pompano Beach, Florida. Visit the official Twin Galaxies website.

Screen Gems releases the fantasy film The Covenant, directed by Renny Harlin and starring Steven Strait, Sebastian Stan, Laura Ramsey, Taylor Kitsch, Toby Hemingway, and Jessica Lucas to 2,681 US theaters. Contrary to popular belief, the film isn’t based on a comic series. The source of the misconception is a promotional comic series based on the film that was released before its release. Produced on a budget of US$20 million, it will gross US$8,852,458 domestically in its opening weekend. IMDB listing MPAA Rating:MPAA Rating: PG-13 Running Time: 1 hr 37 mins