The Great Geek Manual

1898
Reverend Hannibal Williston Goodwin receives a patent for his celluloid photographic film, which he describes as “nitro cellulose transparent flexible photographic film pellicles.” (US No. 610,861)

1899
The first American automobile fatality occurs when Henry H. Bliss is run over as he exits a streetcar at the intersection of Central Park West and 74th Street in New York City. He steps into the path of an approaching horseless carriage driven by Arthur Smith. Bliss, age 68, is taken to a hospital, where he will die of his injuries. The driver is arrested and held on US$1,000 bail.

1922
The world’s highest shade temperature is recorded at the African village of Al Aziziyah, about twenty-five miles (40km) south of Tripoli, the capital of Libya. Temperatures reach upwards of 136.4 ºF (58 ºC). The village is a major trade center of the Jifarah plain, just a few miles south of the Mediterranean Sea.

1956
International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) introduces the first commercial computer to feature a magnetic disk storage system (hard drive), the IBM 305 RAMAC. The drive itself, which was introduced on September 4, features fifty double-sided twenty-four inch diameter disks or “platters,” each of which is operated by an arm and one read/write head. Each disk has a capacity of about 5MB each, with a transfer rate is 8800 characters per second. RAMAC is an acronym for “Random Access Method of Accounting and Control.” It marks a revolution in computing as it the first business computer designed to provide businesses with real time accounting. In 1957, the first RAMAC will be installed at Chrysler’s MOPAR Division.

1969
The animated series Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? premieres on CBS at 10:30 AM EST in the US. Visit the franchise’s official website. TV.com entry

1974
The sci-fi series Kolchak: The Night Stalker premieres on ABC. The series follows a newspaper reporter who investigates crimes with mysterious and unlikely causes that the proper authorities won’t accept or pursue. IMDB listing

1981
Control Data introduces the Control Data 110 microcomputer. Price: US$4995

1982
Universal Pictures releases the comedy Fast Times at Ridgemont High, directed by Amy Heckerling and starring Sean Penn, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Judge Reinhold, Phoebe Cates, Brian Backer, Robert Romanus, Ray Walston, and Forrest Whitaker, is released to 498 US theaters in a limited release. In it, Sean Penn plays Jeff Spicoli, a teenage surfer whose dialog is liberally punctuated by several slang terms, such as “awesome” and “radical” (rad), that are quickly adopted into youth culture and come into popular use in BBS communities. It marks the first major change in language that can be clearly dated using the web. Produced on a budget of US$4.5million, the film will gross US$2,545,674 domestically in its opening weekend. IMDB listing MPAA Rating: R Running Time: 1 hr 32 mins

1983
The Osborne Computer Corporation, which produced the first portable computer, the Osborne I, declares bankruptcy. Designed by company founder Adam Osborne, the twenty-four pound, US$1,795 system features software worth an estimated US$1,500, a five-inch display, 64KB of memory, a modem, and two 5¼-inch floppy disk drives.

1985
Nintendo releases the platform game Super Mario Bros. for the Famicon in Japan.

Steve Jobs informs John Sculley of five Apple employees will resign to join him in his new company. They are Bud Tribble, Dan’l Lewin, George Crow, Rich Page, and Susan Barnes.

1989
An immense British banking computer error awards £2 billion to banking customers that didn’t belong to them within a thirty minute period. According to a Citibank subsidiary, .7 per cent of the funds were never returned.

1991
New Line Cinema releases the horror film Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare, directed by Rachel Talalay and starring Robert Englund, Breckin Meyer, Lisa Zane, Shon Greenblatt, Yaphet Kotto, Ricky Dean Logan, Lezlie Deane, and Tobe Sexton, to 1,862 US theaters. Produced on a budget of US$5 million, the film will gross US$12,966,525 domestically in its opening weekend. IMDB listing MPAA Rating: R Running Time: 1 hrs 29 min

1992
A US Court of Appeals rules that reverse engineering is a legitimate business practice. The ruling comes in the Nintendo vs Atari copyright infringement case. The court rules, however, that Atari had infringed Nintendo copyrights for other reasons.

1993
Acclaim Entertainment release versions of Mortal Kombat for the Nintendo Game Boy, Sega Genesis, Sega Game Gear, and Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES). Acclaim spent US$10 million on pre-release marketing, declaring the day “Mortal Monday”. Gamers will be disappointed in Nintendo’s policies which remove the essence of blood and fatalities in their version. Sega’s versions require a code to be entered before the more graphic aspects of the game can be accessed. As a result, the Genesis versions outsell Nintendo’s at a ratio of eight to one in many markets. Visit the game’s official website. Price: US$34.99 (Game Boy) US$74.99 (Super NES)

eGames releases the platform game Speedy Eggbert for Windows. ESRB: K-A (Kids to Adults)

1994
The Ulysses robotic spaceprobe passes the Sun’s south pole.

1995
Atari Corporation begins shipping Ultra Vortek, a fantasy fighting game for the Atari Jaguar 64-bit game system. The game was developed by Beyond Games, a third party developer ,who were originally going to distribute and market the game themselves. During development, the game was called Ultra Vortek, but there were possible identification conflicts with a Nintendo game called Vortex.

1996
Asmik Ace Entertainment releases Virtual Pro-Wrestling for the Sony PlayStation.

Hayes Microcomputer Products,Inc., announces they will close its manufacturing plant in Thousand Oaks, California and put up to 375 persons out of work. The company claims the company will save up to US$6 million annually after an initial US$6.5 million in costs to close the facility.

NEC Home Electronics releases Chip Chan Kick! for the NEC PC-FX in Japan.

1998
A group of computer hackers calling themselves “Hacking for Girlies” deface The New York Times website, renaming it HFG. The hackers express anger at the arrest and imprisonment of Kevin Mitnick, the subject of the book “Takedown” co-authored by Times reporter John Markoff. In early November, two members of HFG will tell Forbes magazine that they initiated the attack because they were bored and couldn’t agree on a video to watch.

1999
3Com Corporation reveals plans to spin off its Palm Computing Unit, which they originally obtained through their US Robotics acquisition.

The Drudge Report website is defaced by the “United Loan Gunmen”.

Hackers deface South Africa’s official statistics website, replacing legitimate economic information with critical comment about the nation’s telephone company, Telkom, such as “Telkom stop your … lame-ass monopoly or we will disconnect you.”

International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) unveils the new line of IBM RS/6000 workstations based on the UNIX software operating system and targeting customers of Sun Microsystems, Inc. The IBM RS/6000 B50 starts at less than US$4,000.

Next Generation Online reports that Virtual Games has signed with Activision to develop a high-resolution 3D version of BattleZone and an unnamed title for the arcade.

Sony Computer Entertainment Japan (SCEJ) and its subsidiaries make a number of announcements regarding PlayStation 2 just preceding the Tokyo Game Show. Amongst them is the news that the new generation of PlayStation has been named PlayStation 2. It will be released in Japan on Saturday, March 4, 2000 for a retail price of 39,800 Yen. It will include a Dual Shock 2 controller, an 8MB memory card, a PlayStation 2 demo disc, and an AV multicable and power cord. It will play existing PlayStation content, enhanced PlayStation 2 titles, audio Compact Discs (CD) and DVD-video. It will also features two USB ports and a Type III PCMCIA card slot. It will be released in Europe and the United States in the Fall of 2000. SCEJ separately announces the availability of their software development tools (model number DTL-T10000) for two million Yen and claims over two hundred worldwide companies having already committed support for PlayStation 2. Finally, SCEJ announces that it will establish PlayStation 2 as an Internet-based platform for electronic distribution of digital content.

Version 6.00 of Corel Paint Shop Pro, a bitmap and vector graphics editor, is released for Windows. Visit the application’s official website.

2000
At the Paris Apple Expo, Apple Computer releases a public beta version of Mac OS X with promises that version 1.0 will be available sometime in early 2001. Surprisingly, one hundred thousand copies of the beta are hold to avid Apple fans. Price: US$29.95

Lego Media releases the racing game Lego Stunt Rally for Windows.

2001
Capcom releases the versus fighting game Capcom vs. SNK 2 for the PlayStation 2 and Sega Dreamcast in Japan.

Harcourt publishes the fantasy novel The Other Wind by Ursula K. Le Guin as a hardcover. (ISBN-10: 0151006849) It is the sixth novel in The Earthsea Cycle. The Other Wind continues the stories of Lebannen, Tenar, Tehanu, and, in a minor role, Ged, from the previous books. Length: 256 pages

2002
Eidos Interactive releases the real-time tactics game Commandos 2: Men of Courage in the Xbox in Europe.

Illusion releases the third person shooter Des Blood 4 for Windows. Visit the game’s official website.

Version 7.3.1 of the Fermi Linux operation system is released. Fermi Linux is a catch all designation for Linux distributions used by the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), which are based on Scientific Linux. Visit the application’s official website.

2004
Bandai releases the racing game Digimon Racing for the Game Boy Advance in the US. ESRB: E (Everyone)

2005
Activision releases World Series of Poker for personal computers and the Nintendo GameCube, PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, and Xbox in the US. ESRB: E10+ (Everyone)

Adobe Systems releases the Dreamweaver 8 HTML editor for personal computers. Visit the application’s official website.

Electronic Arts releases the racing game Burnout Legends for the PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, and Xbox in the US. Visit the game’s official website. ESRB: E10+ (Everyone)

JAMDAT Mobile releases the first-person shooter Doom RPG for mobile phones. The storyline incorporates many of the events of Doom 3, but involves different characters than those in the computer version. Visit the game’s official website.

Nintendo releases the latest version of its GameBoy handheld video gaming system, Game Boy Micro, is released in Japan. Code-name: Oxygen Price: ¥8,000

Sony Online Entertainment releases EverQuest II: Desert of Flames, the first expansion for the MMORPG EverQuest II, for Windows. Visit the expansion’s official website. Teen (T)

Sony Online Entertainment releases EverQuest: Depths of Darkhollow (DoD), the tenth expansion pack for the MMORPG EverQuest II, for Windows. Visit the expansion’s official website.

THQ releases Evil Dead: Regeneration for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox. It is based on the movie trilogy The Evil Dead. In it, Ash Williams is locked away in an asylum for the criminally insane, as a result of the events that took place in The Evil Dead and Evil Dead II. Convinced the world thinks he is crazy, the truth is much more nefarious. His doctor, Dr. Reinhard, somehow in possession of Professor Raymond Knowby’s diary and the Necronomicon ex Mortis, plans on using the books to bring about his ascension to power. In the process he releases an army of Deadites on the unsuspecting world and it is Ash’s job to stop the doctor and put the Deadites back where they belong. Visit the game’s official website. ESRB: M (Mature)

Ubisoft Entertainment releases the driving game GripShift PSP for the PlayStation Portable in the US. Visit the game’s official website. ESRB: E (Everyone)

2006
Atari releases the roleplaying game Age of Pirates: Caribbean Tales for Windows in US. Visit the game’s official website.

The Blade: The Series episode “Conclave” first airs. In it, Marcus makes the final move on the Purebloods and also discovers the whereabouts of Blade’s and Shen’s main hideout. This leads to a final showdown between Marcus and Blade as well as Krista and Chase! It is the twelfth and final episode of the series. TV.com entry

The dwarf planet 2003 UB313 is renamed Eris.

Microsoft wins what it describes as the largest civil judgment ever won from a spammer in Europe, £45,000 (US$83,000). The case, which was filed against Paul Fox, was not an allegation of spamming, but a complaint that Fox breached the Hotmail service’s terms and conditions of service, which state that, “You may not use any [Microsoft] Services to send Spam. You also may not deliver Spam or cause Spam to be delivered to any of Microsoft’s Services or customers.” To gauges the extent of Fox’s campaign, which promoted a pornographic website, Microsoft sampled twenty thousand of its over two hundred million user accounts and discovered that seventy of them had been targeted, some with over two hundred fifty messages in a single day. Read more at the Register.

Nintendo releases the DS Lite handheld video game system in two new colors in North America: coral (pink) and onyx (black).

Version 1.5.0 of Rdesktop operating system, an open source Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) protocol client, is released under the GNU General Public License. Visit the system’s official website.