The Great Geek Manual

1958
Jack St Clair Kilby demonstrates the world’s first integrated circuit to fellow researchers and executives at Texas Instruments (TI). The circuit contains five components, including germanium mesa transistors, resistors, and capacitors linked by wires, on a piece of germanium half an inch long and thinner than a toothpick. The purpose of the demonstration is to prove that resistors and capacitors can exist on the same piece of semiconductor material. The circuit was designed while the TI plant was officially shut down for a vacation. As a new employee, Kilby had not yet earned a vacation and was left virtually alone to determine that resistors and capacitors could be made from the same material and integrated together on a single chip. On February 6, 1959, he will apply for a patent, which will eventually be issued on June 23, 1964.

1959
The Soviet Union launches Lunik II toward the Moon aboard a Luna 8K72 carrier rocket. It will become the first man-made object to strike the Moon on September 13th at 22:02:04 UT, in Palus Putredinis, east of Mare Serenitatis near the Aristides, Archimedes, and Autolycus craters. The probe is equipped with Cherenkov detectors, geiger counters, a magnetometer, micrometeorite detectors, and scintillation counters, but it has no independent propulsion system.

The television series Bonanza premieres on NBC. The western is the first regularly-scheduled television program presented in color in the US.

1960
The Data Processing Division of International Business Machines (IBM) announces the IBM 1410 data processing system, a powerful intermediate computer marketed a midrange business machine. It contains large volume storage facilities and fast input/output units for up-to-the-minute, accurate punched card output and printed reports. Initial orders for the 1410 exceed 3,500, making it the most widely-accepted data processing machine ever produced.

1962
The “Space Race” begins when, in a speech at Rice University, President John F. Kennedy announces that America should attempt to land a man on the Moon and return him safely to Earth. “I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to Earth.” (Some source claim that JFK gave the same speech to NASA employees earlier, on May 25, 1961)

1966
The manned spacecraft Gemini 11, piloted by Commander Charles Conrad Jr. and Lieutenant Commander Richard F. Gordon Jr., is launched. It is the twenty-fifth spaceflight. The mission will last two days and twenty-three hours and include forty-four orbits at an altitude of 1,368.9km.

1970
The unmanned Soviet lunar probe Luna 16 is launched. After twenty-six hours and twenty-five minutes on the lunar surface, it will become the first spacecraft to carry lunar soil samples back to Earth.

1981
The animated series Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends premieres on NBC as a Saturday morning cartoon, featuring Spider-Man, Iceman, and introducing Firestar. The series will run for three seasons, through September 10, 1983, and it will later be re-aired from 1984 to 1986. TV.com entry

1983
Apple Computer reduces the price of the Lisa computer with software from US$9,995 to US$8,190, and also makes the Lisa available without software for US$6,995.

1985
At the Apple Computer annual board meeting, chairman Steve Jobs announces that he will start a new company with other “lower-level” employees, to build computers for the higher-education market.

1989
NEC Home Electronics introduces a coin-operated version of the TurboGrafx-16 video game system.

1991
Sony introduces the Data Discman, a handheld computer that can operate on small compact discs costing US$20-50 each. The devices’ release is set for November. Price: US$550

1992
Electronic Arts announces that it will acquire Origin Systems, a game developer based in Austin, Texas.

NASA launches the Space Shuttle Endeavour on the fiftieth shuttle mission. (STS-47) Among the crew is Mae Carol Jemison, the first African-American woman in space, Mamoru Mohri, the first Japanese citizen to crew a NASA mission, along with Mark C. Lee and Mark C. Lee, the first married couple in space. Over the course of the eight day mission, Jemison will conduct research concerning bone-loss in zero gravity and space-sickness.

1994
Mosaic Communications announces its first products, the Mosaic Netscape web browser and the Mosaic Netsite line of servers.

1995
Toad Computer of Severna Park, Maryland announces plans to mirror the Atari software archive maintained by the University of Michigan. The library consists of over 700MB of compressed public domain software for the Atari 8-bit, ST, STe, TT030, and Falcon computers.

1996
David Bajer, Barbara Castillo, and John Skruch relocate to the corporate offices of JTS. The three, which are instructed to “work together” despite being separated into distant parts of the building from each other, are the last remaining remnants of the Atari Corporation. Their relocation marks the end of the legendary company’s measurable autonomy. Meanwhile, Tom Mitchell, President of JTS, lays off ten percent of his company’s employees and hints at more to come. In an internal company-wide memo, Mitchell blames the merger with Atari as the cause of the layoffs.

The urban fantasy television mini-series Neverwhere, directed by Dewi Humphreys, created by Neil Gaiman and
Lenny Henry, premieres on BBC Two. It is the first of six half-hour episodes. Neil Gaiman will later adapt the series into a novel of the same name. In the series, Richard Mayhew, an average Londoner, encounters an injured girl named Door on the street one night. Despite his girlfriend’s protests, he decides to help her, but when he does, he suddenly ceases to exist for regular people and becomes real only to the denizens of “London Below,” whose inhabitants are invisible to the people of “London Above.” He loses everything as he travels London Below in an attempt to help Door survive. Visit Neil Gaiman’s official website. IMDB listing

1998
The website of Docklands is hacked by “BuG^ & Safety^”. View an archived version of the defaced website.

2005
eBay announces that it will acquire the voice over IP (VOIP) provider Skype for US$2.6 billion in cash and stock and another US$1.5 billion contingent on the company’s future performance. The company hopes to integrate the company’s telephony with its auction services and its Paypal banking service to expand from consumer services to business markets. Visit the official Skype website.

Sun Microsystems unveils a new range of Opteron based Unix servers: the Sun Fire X2100, X4100 and X4200 servers. They were designed from scratch by the team led by Andreas von Bechtolsheim to address heat and power consumption issues commonly faced in data centers.

2006
At a press event in held at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, California, Apple Computer announces the release of the second generation iPod shuffle, calling it “the most wearable iPod ever.” First shipments of the device are slated for an October 2006 arrival, but it won’t actually start shipping until Friday, November 3, 2006. The company also announces the iTV digital receiver. The device allows users to play media downloaded on a computer on televisions. Read more at CNet.

At the same press event, Apple Computer also releases iTunes 7, which the company calls “the most significant enhancement to the world’s most popular music jukebox and online music and video store since it debuted in 2001.” Version 7 introduces the ability to download movies, improved video resolutions of 640×480 (VGA), gapless playback, and Cover Flow. Read the official press release.

Version 1.0 of Linkat, an RPM-based Linux distribution developed for the Ministry of Education of Generalitat de Catalunya. It is based on openSUSE 9.1 and uses GNOME as default desktop environment. Visit the system’s official website.

Version 11 of Corel Paint Shop Pro (PSP), bitmap and vector graphics editor, is released for Windows. Visit the application’s official website.

2008
The Virginia Supreme Court overturns the conviction of notorious AOL spammer Jeremy Jaynes who had been the first defendant to be convicted of a felony for spamming, ruling that the unsolicited bulk e-mail provision of the Virginia Computer Crimes Act is too broad, violating the First Amendment right to anonymous speech. Jaynes was convicted after sending over fifty-five thousand pieces of unsolicited e-mail with falsified routing and transmission information over AOL’s proprietary network in three twenty-four hour periods in just ten days. The principal flaws in the law that are cited as being unconstitutional are that it specifically targets e-mails employing falsified data and applies to private as well as commercial messages, meaning that the law could be applied to anonymous political correspondence. Read the court ruling.