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Preparing for the Incoming Computer Shopper Tsunami
There’s no way for me to know where your awareness starts with all this, so let’s just start at the beginning. Computer Shopper was a hell of a magazine. I wrote a whole essay about it,…
Most cited
Posts that commenters keep linking to, ranked by how many different people have cited them in Hacker News comments. 53 posts.
32
New study reveals most classic video games are unavailable
New study reveals most classic video games are completely unavailable
33
Apollo 11 vs. USB-C Chargers (2020)
I think it is healthy to compare historical and modern computing. Let's see how the CPUs contained in recent USB-C wall chargers compare to the power of the Apollo 11 Guidance Computer (AGC). The Apollo 11 spacecraft carried 3 humans to the moon and back in 1969.
34
Report on an Unidentified Space Station (1982)
By good luck we have been able to make an emergency landing on this uninhabited space station. There have been no casualties. We all count ourselves fortunate to have found safe haven at a moment when the expedition was clearly set on disaster.
35
DAK and the Golden Age of Gadget Catalogs
Hi. My name is Cabel. And I’ve probably got the neatest job in the whole world. I wear many hats. But here on my personal blog, I get to write about the things I really care about, just for y…
36
Remembering Doug Lenat and his quest to capture the world with logic
Stephen Wolfram shares memories of Doug Lenat, early AI pioneer and developer of the CYC system. Their discussions around AI & logic and the potential combined uses of their respective discoveries.
37
Hexadecimal clock counting down to 2038 problem
It is now ??????????.??? ( ????-??-??T??:??:??.???Z ) in Unix time , according to your local system clock.
38
Modern TLS/SSL on 16-bit Windows
Lately, there's been an resurgence of new programs written for retro computers—everything from a Slack client to many Wordle clones, to a Mastodon client. But most of these programs, if they connect to the Internet, require a proxy running on a modern computer to handle the SSL/TLS connection, which almost all APIs…
39
The Resilience of Costco (2018)
For 40 years, Costco has succeeded with a simple formula: reinvest merchandising profits into lower prices and better products; be a disciplined operator; and treat customers and employees well. But with greater share of shopping moving online, it’s fair to wonder if the company's best da
40
USB-C done cheap: when 2 ports become 1 (2020)
How PC hardware is implementing USB-C in a way that may or may not violate standards.
41
The Mystery of the Bloomfield Bridge
This pedestrian bridge crosses I-494 just west of the Minneapolis Airport . It connects Bloomington to Richfield. I drive under it often and I wondered: why is it there? It's not in an area that is particularly walkable, and it doesn't connect any establishments that obviously need to be connected. So why was it built?
42
Things Every Hacker Once Knew (2017)
One fine day in January 2017 I was reminded of something I had half-noticed a few times over the previous decade. That is, younger hackers don’t know the bit structure of ASCII and the meaning of the odder control characters in it.
43
Game Boy / Color Architecture
An in-depth analysis that explains how this console works internally
44
Examining the silicon dies of the Intel 386 processor
You might think of the Intel 386 processor (1985) as just an early processor in the x86 line, but the 386 was a critical turning point for m...
45
Windows XP Activation: Game Over
For almost two decades, MSKey Readme 1 has heralded the defeat of Windows XP's product activation, not via mere circumvention , but by cracking the encryption algorithm itself.
46
Wii Architecture – A Practical Analysis
An in-depth analysis that explains how this console works internally
47
Lisping at JPL Revisited
It has been over 20 years since I wrote " Lisping at JPL ", half memoir and half geeky screed (and all of it half-baked) about how an obscur...
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The Apple Network Server's all-too-secret weapon (featuring PPC Toolbox)
Most of my systems are microcomputers (and commensurately sized), though I do have some moderately larger beasts: you've met homer , my 1987...
50
Good times create weak men (2019)
Software abstraction ladder becomes too tall and starts to fall
51
The complex history of the Intel i960 RISC processor
The Intel i960 was a remarkable 32-bit processor of the 1990s with a confusing set of versions. Although it is now mostly forgotten (outs...
52
How Many People? Ancient Demography
Bret Devereaux (A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry)2023121 points5 commentscited by 3History & Retro Computing details
One of the first questions anyone asks about past societies is, ‘how many people were there?’ It is one of those basic bits of information and generally speaking those of us who teach t…
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The Backbone: A History of the Internet
This page provides a single entry point to all the posts in the story of how the world got online. Now available as a book, buy here. The Backbone: Introduction One System, Universal Service? The U…