1882 – Thomas Edison’s first commercial hydroelectric power plant began operation on the Fox River in Appleton, Wisconsin.

http://www.americaslibrary.gov/jb/gilded/jb_gilded_hydro_1.html

1954 – The USS Nautilus, the first nuclear submarine, was commissioned at Groton, CT.

http://www.ussnautilus.org/nautilus/index.shtml

1980 – Xerox published the Version 1.0 specifications for Ethernet in conjunction with Intel and Digital Equipment Corporation.

https://books.google.com/books?id=ioTFBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA167&lpg=PA167&dq=september+30+1980+xerox&source=bl&ots=r3kou4ggPv&sig=OUXVYAGcJqugpSYCnlNMjBc5Rwk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CD0Q6AEwBmoVChMI2Y3vuazvxwIVxDOICh22CAro#v=onepage&q=september%2030%201980%20xerox&f=false

2014 – Microsoft announced its next operating system would be called Windows 10, not Windows 9 and would arrive sometime in 2015.

http://live.theverge.com/microsoft-windows-9-event-live-blog/

Read Tom’s science fiction and other fiction books at Merritt’s Books site.

1920 – The Joseph Horne department store in Pittsburgh ran an advertisement in the Pittsburgh Sun, describing wireless Victrola music being picked up by radio. Amateur Wireless Sets were on sale for $10.

http://books.google.ca/books?id=bOo6Pj437KcC&pg=PA30&lpg=PA30&dq=september+29+1920+joseph+home+department+store&source=bl&ots=jNE7alxyrl&sig=cCNgYJ9p_ARyYDax18tNwjx1VHY&sa=X&ei=5uwuUMnaMcm1rQG3yYHYAQ&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=september%2029%201920%20joseph%20home%20department%20store&f=false

1954 – CERN officially came into being. In addition to countless advancements in science, it would go on to foster the invention of the World Wide Web.

http://international-relations.web.cern.ch/International-Relations/ms/

1994 – Programmers first demonstrated the HotJava prototype browser to executives at Sun Microsystems Inc. It was an attempt to port the Java language to the Web. It worked.

http://www.computerhistory.org/tdih/september/29/

1995 – The Sony PlayStation went on sale in Europe.

http://thenextweb.com/media/2015/09/09/playstation-turns-20-in-the-u-s-heres-a-look-back-at-the-consoles-evolution/

1996 – The Nintendo 64 launched in North America spreading its 3D world controlled by an analog stick to a new continent.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2011/09/24/nintendo-64-launching-a-legacy

2015 – Google announced the Nexus 5X and 6P phones, new Chromecast and Chromecast Audio, and an Android tablet called the Pixel C.

http://thenextweb.com/google/2015/09/29/everything-google-announced-today-at-its-nexus-2015-event/

Read Tom’s science fiction and other fiction books at Merritt’s Books site.

1998 – Microsoft’s Internet Explorer passed Netscape Navigator as the Web browser with the greatest market share, according to a report from the International Data Corporation.

http://www.wired.com/thisdayintech/2009/09/0928ie-beats-netscape/

2008 – SpaceX launched the Falcon 1, the first ever private spacecraft to enter orbit.

http://www.spacex.com/press/2012/12/19/spacex-successfully-launches-falcon-1-orbit

2011 – Amazon shook up the tablet market, announcing the the Amazon Kindle Fire 7-inch tablet for $199.

http://money.cnn.com/2011/09/28/technology/amazon_tablet/index.htm

2015 – NASA announced definitive signs of liquid water on Mars had been found near the equator. Dr. Alfred S. McEwen and other scientists published a paper in the journal Nature Geoscience, describing the direct identification of water in the the form of hydration salts.

https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-confirms-evidence-that-liquid-water-flows-on-today-s-mars

Read Tom’s science fiction and other fiction books at Merritt’s Books site.

1922 – Scientists at the Naval Aircraft Radio Laboratory near Washington, DC, report on experiments with short wave radio that show if a ship passed through a radio wave broadcast between two stations, that ship could be detected. It was a development on the road to radar.

http://science.howstuffworks.com/transport/flight/classic/world-war-i-flight-timeline7.htm

1983 – Richard Stallman announced the GNU project which aimed at the time to develop a free Unix-like operating system.

http://www.gnu.org/gnu/initial-announcement.html

1996 – Kevin Mitnick was indicted on charges he broke into the systems of major software companies, then transferred stolen material to computers at USC via the Internet. Seems prosaic today, but was unheard of at the time.

http://articles.latimes.com/1996-09-27/local/me-47980_1_computer-hacker

Read Tom’s science fiction and other fiction books at Merritt’s Books site.