Activision releases the Beamrider cartridge for the Atari 2600 home video game system.
Earl Green is the creator, curator, and head writer of theLogBook.com.
Activision releases the Beamrider cartridge for the Atari 2600 home video game system.
Activision releases the Pitfall II: Lost Caverns cartridge for the Atari 2600 home video game system, adding new adventures to Pitfall Harry’s resume and wowing players with sophisticated polyphonic music from a console infamous for its buzzes, bleeps and bloops. (The secret: the cartridge contains its own special audio chip.)
Konami introduces the arcade game Circus Charlie in the United States. Patterned after the Olympic-themed Track & Field, Circus Charlie is a “multi-event” game based on circus tricks.
The sixth episode of Chocky airs on Thames Television, adapting the novels of John Wyndham into a television serial starring Andrew Ellams and James Hazeldine. The concludes the first season; the story will pick up in 1985 under the title Chocky’s Children. 
The 615th and 616th episodes of Doctor Who air on BBC1, in a special 50-minute format due to the BBC’s coverage of the 1984 Winter Olympics. Terry Molloy assumes the role of Davros; Maurice Colbourne, Rula Lenska, Rodney Bewes and Leslie Grantham guest star. This is Janet Fielding’s last on-screen appearance as long-time TARDIS traveler Tegan Jovanka until 2022.
This timeline entry leads to an entry covering this entire Doctor Who serial; there are plans to write new episodic entries in the future. You can support this effort!
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Scotti Bros. Records releases “Weird Al” Yankovic‘s second album, In 3-D, featuring the singles “Eat It” and “I Lost On Jeopardy”.
The 617th episode of Doctor Who airs on BBC1. Anthony Ainley appears as the Master, as Nicola Bryant is introduced as new TARDIS traveler Peri, the first regular American character (though the actress herself is British). Otherworldly location filming has been done at Lanzarote in the Canary Islands for this story. Peter Wyngarde guest stars.
The 618th episode of Doctor Who airs on BBC1. Anthony Ainley appears as the Master, and Peter Wyngarde guest stars. Otherworldly location filming has been done at Lanzarote in the Canary Islands for this story.
This timeline entry leads to an entry covering this entire Doctor Who serial; there are plans to write new episodic entries in the future. You can support this effort!
Order Earl Green’s book VWORP!1 from theLogBook.com Store
The 619th episode of Doctor Who airs on BBC1. Anthony Ainley appears as the Master, and Peter Wyngarde guest stars. Otherworldly location filming has been done at Lanzarote in the Canary Islands for this story.
This timeline entry leads to an entry covering this entire Doctor Who serial; there are plans to write new episodic entries in the future. You can support this effort!
Order Earl Green’s book VWORP!1 from theLogBook.com Store
NASA launches Earth resource observation satellite Landsat 5, virtually identical to the Landsat 4 satellite launched in 1982. Like Landsat 4, Landsat 5 is capable of sending real-time data to Earth through the Tracking & Data Relay Satellite (TDRS) system. Landsat 5 becomes the longest-operating Earth observation satellite, outliving its anticipated three-year design life by a factor of ten and not becoming inoperable until 2013; by the time it was shut down, Landsats 7 and 8 had been launched. Among the events Landsat 5 witnessed from orbit were a tsunami that killed nearly a quarter million people along Indonesia’s coastlines in 2004, and the 1986 meltdown of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor in the Soviet Union.
The 620th episode of Doctor Who airs on BBC1. Anthony Ainley appears as the Master, and Peter Wyngarde guest stars. Mark Strickson makes his final appearance as TARDIS traveler Turlough, and this episode also sees the end of Kamelion, a robot intended to be played by a real robot later beset by mechanical issues in the wake of its designer’s death.
This timeline entry leads to an entry covering this entire Doctor Who serial; there are plans to write new episodic entries in the future. You can support this effort!
Order Earl Green’s book VWORP!1 from theLogBook.com Store
The 621st episode of Doctor Who airs on BBC1. Robert Glenister (Life On Mars), Maurice Roeves (The Nightmare Man) and Christopher Gable guest star. This four-part story is the swan song of the fifth Doctor (Peter Davison).
The 622nd episode of Doctor Who airs on BBC1. Robert Glenister (Life On Mars), Maurice Roeves (The Nightmare Man) and Christopher Gable guest star. This four-part story is the swan song of the fifth Doctor (Peter Davison).
This timeline entry leads to an entry covering this entire Doctor Who serial; there are plans to write new episodic entries in the future. You can support this effort!
Order Earl Green’s book VWORP!1 from theLogBook.com Store
Atari releases the arcade video game TX-1, licensed from Namco (which itself licensed the game from another Japanese manufacturer). This game is available only in a massive “cockpit” big enough to accommodate three CRT screens.
The 623rd episode of Doctor Who airs on BBC1. Robert Glenister (Life On Mars), Maurice Roeves (The Nightmare Man) and Christopher Gable guest star. This four-part story is the swan song of the fifth Doctor (Peter Davison).
This timeline entry leads to an entry covering this entire Doctor Who serial; there are plans to write new episodic entries in the future. You can support this effort!
Order Earl Green’s book VWORP!1 from theLogBook.com Store
The 624th episode of Doctor Who airs on BBC1. Robert Glenister (Life On Mars), Maurice Roeves (The Nightmare Man) and Christopher Gable guest star. Peter Davison makes his exit at the fifth Doctor in this story, with the new Doctor, Colin Baker, given a brief scene at the end of the episode.
This timeline entry leads to an entry covering this entire Doctor Who serial; there are plans to write new episodic entries in the future. You can support this effort!
Order Earl Green’s book VWORP!1 from theLogBook.com Store
Like many other companies tied into the video game business – whose profits seem to be in an endless downward spiral – North American Phillips (formerly Magnavox) closes down production of Odyssey² hardware and software, and reassigns staff programmers to other products, including Phillips’ stand-alone word processor, VideoWriter, though few of the company’s former game designers remain with that project for long.
The 625th episode of Doctor Who airs on BBC1. This story introduces Colin Baker as the sixth Doctor, though his traumatic regeneration leaves him violently unstable for the first time in the show’s history. Maurice Denham guest stars.
The 626th episode of Doctor Who airs on BBC1. This story introduces Colin Baker as the sixth Doctor; Maurice Denham guest stars.
This timeline entry leads to an entry covering this entire Doctor Who serial; there are plans to write new episodic entries in the future. You can support this effort!
Order Earl Green’s book VWORP!1 from theLogBook.com Store
The 627th episode of Doctor Who airs on BBC1. This story introduces Colin Baker as the sixth Doctor; Maurice Denham guest stars.
This timeline entry leads to an entry covering this entire Doctor Who serial; there are plans to write new episodic entries in the future. You can support this effort!
Order Earl Green’s book VWORP!1 from theLogBook.com Store
Activision releases the H.E.R.O. cartridge for the Atari 2600 home video game system.
The 628th episode of Doctor Who airs on BBC1. This story introduces Colin Baker as the sixth Doctor; Maurice Denham guest stars. This is also the finale of the series’ 21st season.
This timeline entry leads to an entry covering this entire Doctor Who serial; there are plans to write new episodic entries in the future. You can support this effort!
Order Earl Green’s book VWORP!1 from theLogBook.com Store
The Soviet Union launches Soyuz T-11 en route to space station Salyut 7. Spending nearly eight days in orbit, cosmonauts Yuri Malyshev, Gennady Strekalov and the first space traveler from India, Rakesh Sharma, perform experiments aboard the station as well as bringing supplies. They return to Earth on April 11th aboard the station crew’s Soyuz T-10 capsule, leaving the newer Soyuz T-11 docked at Salyut 7 for the station crew’s use.
Mixing video highway hypnosis and a strangely hummable theme song, Japanese video game Tube Panic, from the makers of Crazy Climber and Moon Cresta, first appears in American arcades. Players have to fight motion sickness to keep blasting away at bad guys. The game achieves minor cult status but fails to become a smash hit at a time when arcade manufacturers desperately need one.
Space Shuttle Challenger lifts off on the first mission to retrieve a satellite in orbit, repair it, and release it back into that orbit. Launched in 1980, prior to the first shuttle mission, the Solar Maximum (Solar Max) Satellite is outfitted with a mechanism to allow the shuttle’s remote manipulator arm to grasp it; however, two astronauts using Manned Maneuvering Units still have to nudge it into Challenger’s cargo bay. With repairs completed, Solar Max is returned to its orbit, where it lasts until 1989. Challenger’s crew on this flight consists of Commander Bob Crippen, Pilot Francis Scobee, and mission specialists Geroge Nelson, James Van Hoften and Terry Hart.
I.R.S. Records releases R.E.M.‘s second album, Reckoning.
Konami introduces the arcade game Time Pilot ’84 in the United States, dragging the popular Time Pilot style of game play two years into the future. (In many respects, it’s the same game with a new graphics set.)
Having received new orders from NASA, the still-functional Pioneer Venus Orbiter – launched in 1978 and in a high, looping orbit over Venus since it ceased active observations of the planet in 1981 – turns its instruments in the direction of Comet Encke, which is currently passing through the inner solar system. Rather than its cameras, the orbiter’s ultraviolet spectrometer is trained on the comet as Earth-based researchers try to determine the composition and rotational speed of Encke’s nucleus. The Pioneer Venus Orbiter will continue to observe other comets through the late 1980s.
Not quite ready to bring the Apple II line to an end, Apple Computer launches the Apple IIc, a smaller form-factor enhanced Apple IIe specifically designed for portability (an optional LCD monitor – with no backlighting – is also made available on this date). Introduced alongside the IIc is a new Apple operating system, ProDOS, meant to mimic some of the object-oriented features of the Macintosh user interface, as well as an Apple II mouse. Perhaps not surprisingly, Apple also chooses to quietly discontinue support for the Apple III on this date as well.
Scitron Digital releases the album Namco Video Game Music, collecting recordings of music and sounds from the company’s classic arcade games.