The Great Geek Manual

1839
John Herschel makes the first glass plate photograph. The picture is of the forty foot, forty-eight inch aperture telescope used by his father William Herschel, in Slough, England.

1886
The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, developed at the instigation of famed author Victor Hugo, is finalized and joined by ten nations, including the United States. It protects copyright and establishes the rights of an author.

1892
Amalthea, the third moon of Jupiter in order of distance from the planet, is discovered by Edward Emerson Barnard, who names it after a nymph in Greek mythology. Read more about Amalthea at NASA’s website.

1926
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is formed in the US as an offshoot of the Radio Corporation of America (RCA), shortly after the May 1926 acquisition of the radio network operations of AT&T, which had decided to withdraw from radio. The new NBC network is publicized with full-page ads in numerous publications. The new network’s debut broadcast will be transmitted on November 15, 1926.

1934
The first American rocket to break the sound barrier is launched by the American Rocket Society from Marine Park in Staten Island, New York. The rocket, named ARS-4, had a single thrust chamber with four canted nozzles. It will reach a top speed of 700mph, a maximum height of 400ft, and a horizontal range of 1,600ft.

1945
At the Naval Weapons Center in Dahlgren, Virginia, Grace Murray Hopper records the discovery of the first actual computer “bug” by the computer’s operators at 3:45pm in her log book with the explanation, “First instance of actual computer bug being found.” The bug is literally just that, a moth which had become stuck in Relay #70 on Panel “F” of the Harvard Mark II Aiken Relay Calculator. When they extracted the culprit with tweezers, they taped it into the logbook along with the official report. Legend has it that Hopper, a naval officer and famous mathematician was the one who found the bug, but she will state categorically that she wasn’t there at the time. The urban legend will crop up that this was the first-ever use of the word ‘bug’ in this context, but that’s not true. Thomas Edison used the term bug when discussing electrical circuits as early as the 1870s. It is, however, the first time the term “debug” is used. The log book will later be preserved by the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.

1950
In its premiere episode, the sitcom The Hank McCune Show becomes the first television program in history to use dubbed laughter or a “laugh track.”

1967
The animated sci-fi series Birdman and the Galaxy Trio produced by Hanna-Barbera debuts on NBC. The series actually consists of two separate series, as Birdman and the Galaxy Trio never appeared together in any of the episodes.

A Saturn V rocket is launched on its first successful test flight.

1975
NASA launches the Viking 2 space probe on a mission to Mars. The probe consists of two components, a lander and an orbiter. The lander will explore the planet’s surface for 1,281 Martian days, while the orbiter will remain operational until July 25, 1978, successfully returning nearly sixteen thousand images.

1976
Victor Company of Japan, Limited (JVC) unveils its Video Home System (VHS) half-inch videocassette recorder format at the Hotel Okura in Tokyo.

1977
The first TRS-80 computer is sold.

1981
Datapoint and Tandy announce an agreement to allow Tandy TRS-80 computers to use network technology from Datapoint, to connect up to 255 Tandy computers to central storage or printers, or to Datapoint computers.

1982
Conestoga, the world’s first private commercial rocket, is launched on a suborbital flight.

1983
Nintendo releases the platform game Mario Bros. for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in Japan. It is a spin-off of the Donkey Kong series, and the first game in which Mario, which was formerly a carpenter, is a plumber.

1986
At the Palladium in Manhattan, New York, Compaq Computer introduces the Compaq Deskpro 386, the first Intel 80386-based personal computer offered by a major computer manufacturer. The Model 40 features a 16MHz Intel 80386 and 40 MB hard drive. The Model 130 has a 130 MB hard drive. Price: US$6,449 (Model 40) and US$8799 (Model 80)

1989
The animated series Captain N: The Game Master premieres as part of the Saturday morning cartoon lineup on NBC. In the series, Kevin Keene, a teenager from Northridge, California, and his dog, Duke, are carried to another universe known as Videoland through a vortex that forms in his television. In order to fulfill an ancient prophecy, Kevin must become “Captain N: The Game Master” and save Videoland from evil forces led by Mother Brain and headquartered in the floating world/fortress called Metroid. Captain N is assisted by the N Team, which consists of Princess Lana, Simon Belmont, Mega Man, and Pit (Kid Icarus). TV.com entry

1991
Nintendo of America reports that the 16-bit Super NES game console is now available nationwide in the United States. Price: US$199.95

1992
Universal Pictures releases the thriller Sneakers, directed by Phil Alden Robinson and starring Robert Redford, Dan Aykroyd, Ben Kingsley, Mary McDonnell, River Phoenix, Sidney Poitier, David Strathairn, and James Earl Jones, to 1,731 US theaters. In the film, the head of a group of experts who specialize in testing security systems, Martin Bishop, is blackmailed by Government agents into stealing a top secret black box, and the team find themselves embroiled in a game of danger and intrigue. After they recover the box, they discover that it has the capability to decode all existing encryption systems around the world, and that the agents who hired them didn’t work for the Government after all. The film will gross US$10,031,145 in its opening weekend. IMDB listing (MPAA Rating: PG-13) Running Time: 2 hrs 5 mins

1995
Sony releases the PlayStation video game system in the US to more than twelve thousand retail stores. The system features a 33 MHz 32-bit R3000A RISC microprocessor with a 4KB instruction cache, a 1KB data cache, 2MB RAM, 1MB of Video-RAM (VRAM), and 512K audio RAM. It supports a maximum of 16,770,000 colors and up to 640×480 resolution. No software is included except a demo CD. Most of the stock released to retailers sells out shortly after the release, and Sony will boast that one hundred thousand units are sold in the US within the first two days, though analysts will question that figure. The system marks a milestone is the evolution of gaming as an entertainment medium. The PlayStation garners the interest of an older demographic than past game systems with titles like Fear Effect 1 & 2, Metal Gear Solid, Parasite Eve 1 & 2, Resident Evil, as well and Silent Hill, which offer a mature entertainment experience. Price: US$299.99

P.S.X. Magazine, a magazine devoted to the PlayStation and its game titles, premieres on newstands.

1996
The Autumn European Computer Trade Show (ECTS) is held September 9 – 10 at the Olympia in London, England. The event is attended by 16,330 people.

Capcom releases the versus fighting game X-Men vs. Street Fighter to arcades in Japan. It is the first game to blend a tag team style of combat with the familiar Street Fighter game style. Due to insufficient beta testing, every character in this game has at least one infinite combo. However, the game will still be praised as one of the best of the four Marvel vs. Capcom games for precisely this reason.

Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) celebrates the first anniversary of the launch of the PlayStation game console with a party for employees at The Players, a sports bar located in Belmont, California. Every employee is given a copy of the newly released Crash Bandicoot for the PlayStation and promised a logo jean jacket.

1997
Apple Computer announces that it will not spin off its Newton Systems Group as it had announced in May.

1998
IBM unveils the world’s smallest and lightest hard drive with a disk platter about the size of a large coin.

Intel releases the 300MHz Mobile Pentium II processor.

Interplay OEM announces a two-year OEM agreement with Fox Interactive to exclusively distribute Fox Interactive’s software titles.

Version 0.9.0 of PhpMyAdmin, a tool written in PHP intended to handle the administration of MySQL over the Internet, is first released internally. Visit the application’s official website.

1999
The date, “9/9/99″, which was a cause for grave concern among many programmers, causes far fewer difficulties than feared among programs designed to acknowledge “9999″ as an End Of File (EOF) marker. However, the date doesn’t go by without any notice. Risks Digest reports that at least one bank credited a number of random customers with large sums of money due to a software error.

The International Association for Counterterrorism & Security Professionals is hacked by “bowlerz”.

Sega releases the Dreamcast video game system in the US, featuring a 200MHz 128-bit Hitachi SH-4 processor, a NEC PowerVR DC video chip, 16MB RAM, 8MB video RAM, 2MB sound memory, a 12×1GB CD-ROM drive, a 56 kbps modem, and four game ports. Several optional accessories are available for the system, including: controller (US$24.95), a Jump Pack for rumbling controller (US$19.95), a keyboard (US$19.95), and a Visual Memory Unit for mini-games (US$19.95). The system launch is preceded by a US$100 million marketing campaign. In the first 24 hours, Sega sells 250,000 units sell on the first day, with a total of US$97 million worth of hardware and software, setting an entertainment industry record for highest-grossing day. Code-name: Katana Price is US$199.

Texas Governor George W. Bush posts a list that details sources and sizes of contributions to his presidential campaign on his website. The move marks the increasing roll of the Internet in US political campaigns.

A Trojan Horse masquerading as a JPEG file allows hackers to gain access to ICQ passwords circulating across the Internet is reported by Wired News. Only about two hundred incidents have been reported among ICQ’s forty-two million subscribers.

Within hours of the initial launch of the Sega Dreamcast, the Internet is flooded with stories of problems such as audio failures with NFL2000 and the Ready 2 Rumble demo and graphics glitches with the PowerStone demo. Sega also acknowledges difficulties with the Internet browser bundled with system. Users are encouraged to send email to support@sega.com for a free replacement. In response to emails, Sega sends out the following automated reply:

Dreamcast customer,

Thank you for sending us your request for a replacement Dreamcast Network web browser. We want to make sure that you, as one of the hundreds of thousands of gamers who have joined the Sega Dreamcast revolution, have everything you need to experience all that Sega Dreamcast has to offer. As promised,you should receive your new browser within 3 business days.

We greatly appreciate your patience in this matter and apologize for any inconvenience you’ve experienced. If you need additional assistance in the future, please do not hesitate to e-mail us back. Thanks for your support!

Sega of America

2000
It is discovered that the hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica has stretched over a populated city for the first time, after ballooning to a new record size. For two days, September 9th and 10th, the hole extends over the southern city of Punta Arenas, Chile exposing residents to dangerously high levels of ultra violet radiation. Data from NASA shows that the hole covers 11.4 million square miles, an area more than three times the area of the United States.

2001
At 01:46:39 UTC, Unix time reaches one billion seconds since the Unix Epoch (January 1, 1970), hitting ten decimal digits for the first time. The Unix timestamp first hit 9 decimal digits on March 3, 1973, and it will reach two billion seconds at 23:33:20 UTC on May 17th, 2033.

The webcomic VG Cats by Scott Ramsoomair debuts. The comic frequently parodies video games and geek culture. Visit the comic’s official website.

2002
Filmmaker Bart Sibrel, a proponent that the six Apollo lunar missions were elaborate hoaxes, confronts Astronaut Buzz Aldrin outside a Beverly Hills, California hotel, demanding that Aldrin either swear an oath on the Bible that he had walked on the Moon or admit that it was all a hoax. After Aldrin and a female relative who was accompanying him tried to leave, Sibrel put the Bible in front of him and called Aldrin “a coward, a liar, and a thief.” Aldrin punched Sibrel in the face. Beverly Hills police and the city’s prosecutor declined to file charges, and Sibrel sustains no permanent injuries.

Microsoft releases Service Pack 1 (SP1) for Windows XP. Its most notable new features were USB 2.0 support and a Set Program Access and Defaults utility. For the first time, users could control the default application for activities such as web browsing and instant messaging, as well as hide access to some of Microsoft’s bundled programs.

Version 0.5 of Camino, an open source, GUI-based web browser based on Mozilla’s Gecko layout engine and specifically designed for the Mac OS X operating system is released. It is the fourth release of the browser. Visit the application’s official website.

2003
Adrian Lamo, a grey hat hacker infamous performing unsolicited penetration testing on the networks of Fortune 500 companies, surrenders to federal authorities and is charged with hacking The New York Times. In the first week of January, he will plead guilty to a felony count of hacking, for which he will be sentenced to six months’ house arrest, two years probation, and US$65,000 in restitution.

The webcomic Haiku Circus by Ken Sakamoto debuts. Haiku Circus is a comic strip that combines drawings with haiku poetry. Visit the comic’s official website.

2004
The first annual Women’s Game Conference Announces Program and Speakers is held by event organizer The Game Initiative September 9-10, 2004 in Austin, Texas.

Version 0.6.1 of Desktop Light Linux (DeLi Linux) is released. DeLi is particularly optimized to run on older personal computers. DeLi Linux requires only a 386 processor with 8MB RAM. However, it works best with a 486 and 16MB RAM. A full installation with the full package installed requires nearly 400MB of hard disk space. Visit the system’s official website.

2005
Version 1.5 Beta 1 of Mozilla Thunderbird is released. It features a new update system.

2006
The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), a division of the United States Department of Energy, commissions International Business Machines (IBM) to design and construct the first supercomputer to use Cell Broadband Engine processors to sustain processing speed of up to one quadrillion (one thousand trillion) calculations per second (one PFLOPS.) The final product, which will be named the “Roadrunner,” will be completed in May 2008, and in a May 25, 2008 test, the system achieved a record-breaking speed of 1.026 PFLOPS. It was then moved to the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

2007
At 8:21 UTC, the two millionth article is created on the English version of Wikipedia by a user using the handle Zzxc. The article is about El Hormiguero, a Spanish television series. Visit the official Wikipedia website.

2008
William Morrow and Company publishes the science fiction novel Anathem by Neal Stephenson as a hardcover. (ISBN-13: 978-0061474095) Visit this author’s official website. Length: 960 pages