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New
The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 1,024 posts.
History & Retro Computing
Any year
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Visual Basic Turns 25
That’s right! Today marks the 25th (“Silver Anniversary”) since VB first debuted to the world. It seems like just yesterday I’d only been at Microsoft a little over a year when VB turned 20. Looking back at the progress of 5 years—a complete revamp of the IDE and debugger, a trove of new language features, […]
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The Panic Sign
After many many years of writing apps and doing things, Panic finally feels like a real company. Why now? Well, we put our name on a building. That’s right, we’re hittin’ the small big leagues, baby! But this isn’t just for show or ego — it’s a little bit cooler than that. Read on.
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How Breakfast Became a Thing
Do you think breakfast is the most important meal of the day? Then you fell for an ad campaign designed in 1944 to sell more cereal.
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The Independent Discovery of TCP/IP, by Ants
What does the Internet have in common with an ant colony? More than you might think.
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‘Lost’ songs from the Middle Ages are brought back to life
An ancient song repertory will be heard for the first time in 1,000 years this week after being ‘reconstructed’ by a Cambridge researcher and a world-class performer of medieval music
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Inuit Cartography: Wooden Coastline Maps That Fit in a Mitten
In Kalaallit Nunaat (Greenland), the Inuit people are known for carving portable maps out of driftwood to be used while navigating coastal waters. These pieces, which are small enough to be carried…
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When Lobbying was Illegal
Although lobbyists' influence seems inevitable, in the 1800s, several states banned lobbying outright.
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The engineer’s engineer: Computer industry luminaries salute Dave Cutler
The technology industry is still young, but its history is already rich with myths and legends.
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Debian 8.4 released
[03 Oct 2016] Several donations boost reliability of Debian's core infrastructure [27 Sep 2016] The Debian Project mourns the loss of Kristoffer H. Rose [17 Sep 2016] Updated Debian 8: 8.6 released [09 Jul 2016] DebConf16 closes in Cape Town and DebConf17 dates announced [02 Jul 2016] Debian Edu / Skolelinux Jessie …
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Apple II DOS source code
Unlike the Apple I, the Apple II was fully assembled and ready to use with any display monitor. The version with 4K of memory cost $1298. It had color, graphics, sound, expansion slots, game paddles, and a built-in BASIC programming language.
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American Big Brother: A Century of Political Surveillance and Repression
In his 2004 book Perilous Times , Geoffrey R. Stone observes that with respect to free speech rights in wartime, “Time and again, Americans have suppressed dissent, imprisoned and deported dissenters, and then—later—regretted their actions.” In reality, as the timeline below demonstrates, it is not simply American’s…
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A Tribute to Andy Grove (2015) [video]
Andy Grove, former Chairman and CEO of Intel, came to the United States as a refugee from Hungary. With a relentless energy and exceptional mind, he helped build the iconic tech company Intel — and in the process, Silicon Valley itself. Ben Horowitz offers a tribute to this legendary leader (and his own inspiration)…
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The Deep History of Your Apps: Steve Jobs, NeXTSTEP, and Early OO Programming
Since 2008, over a hundred billion apps have been downloaded from Apple’s App Store onto users’ iPhones or iPads. However, the technology and tools powering the mobile “app revolution” are not themselves new, but rather have a long history spanning over thirty years, one which connects back to the beginnings of…
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Twenty years after Pokémon launched, its impact on Wikipedia remains
Years ago, the English Wikipedia was being overrun by a deluge of articles on Pokémon characters and creatures.
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Why do Windows functions begin with a pointless MOV EDI, EDI instruction? (2011)
Practical development throughout the evolution of Windows.
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What Could Have Entered the Public Domain on January 1, 2016?
What Could Have Entered the Public Domain on January 1, 2016? Under the law that existed until 1978 . . . Works from 1959 The films North by Northwest and Ben-Hur, the play A Raisin in the Sun, the books The Naked Lunch and Starship Troopers, the first episodes of The Twilight Zone, and more. . . Current US law…
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Dick Smith Is the Greatest Private Equity Heist of All Time
Want to know how to turn $10m in to $520m in less than two years? Just ask Anchorage Capital. The private equity group has pulled off one of the great heists of all time
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Why Arabs Lose Wars (1999)
Arabic-speaking armies have been generally ineffective in the modern era. Egyptian regular forces did poorly against Yemeni irregulars in the 1960s.1 Syrians could only impose their will in Lebanon during the mid-1970s by the use of overwhelming
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In Memoriam: Ian Murdock
Docker is a founding member of the Blueprint Alliance, a 12-company reference architecture for securing AI agents, built around four governance questions.
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My First Death Threat (2004)
Practical development throughout the evolution of Windows.
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After a ten-year hiatus, NetHack 3.6
Unlike previous releases, which focused on the general game fixes, this release consists of a series of foundational changes in the team, underlying infrastructure and changes to the approach to game development.