August, 1981---IBM releases the first IBM PC, legitimizing home computers and killing of a ton of quirky home computers over the next few years. The Homebrew Computer Club was pretty much over at this point in time anyway.

January, 1990---Operation Sun Devil goes down, where the Secret Service arrest a bunch of teenagers who have illegally accessed computers and charged with disseminating internal AT&T documents describing how 911 works. The era of the 80s "hackers" ended.

March 2000---the tech stock market crases. The Internet craze pretty much tanked at this point.

None of this is anything I consider "arcane inside references" but hey, I'm into computer history.