In 1975 – Atari filed for a patent on the sit-down “cockpit” arcade cabinet, literally putting you inside the game. The game Hi-Way with the slogan “Hi Way — All It Needs Is Wheels”, was the first Atari game to use the cabinet. It was a first-person driver in which you had to dodge cars and… well… drive.

In 1984 – The Monterey Bay Aquarium opened in Monterey, California. It not only provided a world-class place to learn about sea life, but inspired millions of screensavers and wallpaper images.

In 2004 – Mark Shuttleworth sent out an email to Ubuntu developers announcing the first official release of the Linux-based operating system, Warty Warthog. Every six months since, a new version of Ubuntu comes out with a new alliterative animal-inspired name.

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In 1832 – Samuel Morse first conceived of the electric telegraph system. At least he said later this was the day he first thought of it.

In 1941 – The Smith-Putnam Wind Turbine first fed AC power to the electric grid on Grandpa’s Knob in Castleton, Vermont, becoming the first wind machine to do so. The 1.25 MW turbine operated for 1100 hours before a blade failed.

In 1973 – The Atanasoff-Berry Computer finally got its due. US Federal Judge Earl R. Larson signed his decision that the ENIAC patent was invalid and named Atanasoff the inventor of the electronic digital computer. But ENIAC still incorrectly gets the credit from many to this day.

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In 1922 – Six telecom companies joined to found the British Broadcasting Company in order to provide radio broadcasts in Britain. The private company was later replaced by the non-commercial British Broadcasting Corporation in 1927.

In 1954 – Texas Instruments announced the Regency TR-1, the first transistor radio, produced jointly with the Regency Division of Industrial Development Engineering Associates in Indianapolis. TI executive Vice President Pat Haggerty hoped the product would show what transistors could do and spur demand.

In 1985 – Nintendo introduced the Nintendo Entertainment System aka the NES at FAO Schwarz in New York. A little game called Super Mario Brothers was introduced on the same day. The NES was the North American version of the Famicom sold in Japan. It was test-marketed in New York and eventually conquered the continent, becoming an 8-bit classic.

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In 1888 – Thomas Edison filed a patent for something called an optical phonograph. Despite the conflicting name, it was a film camera with images 1/32nd of an inch wide. He said it would “do for the eye what the phonograph does for the ear.”

In 1907 Guglielmo Marconi’s company began the first wireless commercial radio service, and Canada got some tech first. Glace Bay Nova Scotia was able to transmit to Clifden, Ireland. The service was used for trans-atlantic telegraph service.

In 1990 – Col Needham posted a software package to rec.arts.movies called at the time rec.arts.movies movie database, that made the lists of movies on the newsgroup searchable. It would move to the web in 1992 and became known as IMDB, the Internet Movie Database.

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In 1843 – Sir William Rowan Hamilton finally hit on the idea of Quaternions, and needing a bit more space than his hand to jot it down, he carved it into the stone of Brougham Bridge in Dublin. Why do you care about quaternions? Because calculations involving three-dimensional rotations are essential for 3D computer graphics and computer vision. Video games people.

In 1923 – Distributor M. J. Winkler, contracted to distribute the “Alice Comedies”marking the founding of the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio which eventually changed its name to the Walt Disney Company, at Roy’s suggestion. So don’t expect anything after this date to ever go out of copyright.

In 1959 – Control Data Corp. released its model 1604 computer, the first from William Norris’s group that left Sperry Rand Corp.

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