ABC airs the 15th episode of Kolchak: The Night Stalker, based on Jeff Rice’s novel and the 1972 TV movie The Night Stalker, starring Darren McGavin. Jim Backus (Gilligan’s Island) and Larry Linville (M*A*S*H) guest star in an episode co-written by Bob Gale and Robert Zemeckis, who would collaborate years later on Back To The Future.

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The 29th episode of The Six Million Dollar Man is broadcast on ABC, starring Lee Majors and Richard Anderson. Jess Walton guest stars.
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Future Star Trek: Enterprise co-star Jolene Blalock is born in California. After a career in modeling, she will move into acting, with her role as Enterprise’s resident Vulcan crew member T’Pol standing out as her most recognized work. She will also appear in such TV series as Legend Of The Seeker, G vs. E and Stargate SG-1.
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Alpex Corporation, an American computer company, files “the ‘555 Patent” for a “television display control apparatus” capable of loading software from ROM chips embedded in swappable cartridges and other media. This patent effectively shifts the infant video game industry from a hardware-based model to a software-based model, and is licensed by Fairchild Semiconductor for the first cartridge-based video game, the Fairchild Video Entertainment System (later known as Channel F), a year later; the resulting sea change forces a sudden reassessment in the R&D departments at Atari and Magnavox, among others. Due to the remarkably broad nature of patent #4026555, Alpex will be able to take nearly every video game manufacturer to court to force them to license the technology from Alpex through the early ’90s. The first major challenge to Alpex’s patent will come from Nintendo in 1986, a case that will eventually make its way to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1997 – by which time Alpex will go bankrupt pursuing the case.
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The NASA/JPL probe to the inner planets, Mariner 10, makes its last flyby of Mercury, zipping over the planet’s north pole at an altitude of just over 200 miles, and taking the last close-up pictures of Mercury until the Messenger space probe in 2008. Just over a week after its final Mercury encounter, Mariner 10 runs out of fuel and is instructed to shut down. The next Mariner probes, Mariners 11 and 12, are slated to venture toward the outer solar system, and eventually undergo a name change, becoming Voyagers 1 and 2 – making Mariner 10 the last of the Mariner space probes.
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Construction begins on Space Shuttle Orbiter Vehicle 102 (OV-102 for short), the shuttle orbiter that NASA intends to launch as early as
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