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The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 3,229 posts.
History & Retro Computing
Any year
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E-COM: The $40M USPS project to send email on paper
E-COM was a $40 million US Postal Service project to deliver email on paper. Why it failed, and why spammers were its only real customers.
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Intel: Winning and Losing
Idling at a Zenith
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Not a three-year-old chimney sweep (2022)
This footage has gone viral online with the claim that it shows an 3 year old chimney sweep on the job: Millions of people saw the footage, shared it online an were upset by it, as they should be&#…
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How the US built 5k ships in WWII
Among the most impressive manufacturing achievements of the US during WWII was the number of ships it produced.
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From: Steve Jobs. "Great idea, thank you."
The one email I ever got from Steve Jobs, and it said …
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Pixels in Islamic Art: Square Kufic Calligraphy (2020)
When I was a little kid whenever we drove by mosques, I would be intrigued by the complex motifs they’re decorated by. I always tried to figure out the pattern; to me it was just a pattern, I never…
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A Tektronix TDS 684B Oscilloscope Uses CCD Analog Memory
I have a Tektronix TDS 684B oscilloscope that I bought cheaply at an auction. It has 4 channels, 1 GHz of BW and a sample rate of 5 Gsps. Those are respectable numbers even by today’s standards. It’s also the main reason why I have it: compared to modern oscilloscopes, the other features aren’t nearly as impressive…
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Oberon Pi
Oberon, the jewel by Niklaus Wirth and Jürg Gutknecht: Operating System, Compiler and Computer.
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Why Archers Didn't Volley Fire
Bret Devereaux (A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry)2025513 points318 commentsHistory & Retro Computing details
This week we’re looking at a specific visual motif common in TV and film: the arrow volley. You know the scene: the general readies his archers, he orders them to ‘draw!’ and then…
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Old Soviet Venus descent craft nearing Earth reentry
That soon-to-reenter Cosmos 482 is getting increased attention by satellite trackers – and new imagery provides some interesting details.
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The History of Album Art
Matt Ström-Awn · Designer, leader, and coach focused on building exceptional products and teams.
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Altair at 50: Remembering the first Personal Computer
You might think that Apple, Commodore or perhaps Radio Shack made the first personal computer, but you’d be wrong.
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Joining Sun Microsystems – 40 years ago (2022)
40 years ago today: I joined a tiny startup called Sun Microsystems. What a ride! Here’s the never-before-told story of how I arrived at Sun as employee #8! 🧵 I started out in Silicon Valley …
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East German Stasi Tactics – Zersetzung (2021)
A look at the experiences of activists in East Germany (GDR) dealing with Stasi informants and infiltration before the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
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ZFS: Apple's new filesystem that wasn't (2016)
Prologue (2006) I attended my first WWDC in 2006 to participate in Apple’s launch of their DTrace port to the next version of Mac OS X (Leopard). Apple…
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Bill Gates's Personal Easter Eggs in 8 Bit BASIC (2008)
If you type “WAIT6502,1″ into a Commodore PET with BASIC V2 (1979), it will show the string “MICROSOFT!” at the top left corner of the screen. Legend has it Bill Gates himself inserted this easter egg “after he had had an argument with Commodore founder Jack Tramiel”, “just in case Commodore ever…
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The raccoons who made computer magazine ads great
When I got my first job in technology journalism, my grandmother used to call the magazine where I worked “your catalog.” I winced. But in retrospect, she wasn’t that far off. Back then, if you wanted to buy a computer product—this was the early 1990s, before the web changed everything—the odds were pretty decent that…
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The movie mistake mystery from "Revenge of the Sith"
Movies are handmade, and just like any other art form, sometimes the seams that hold movies together become visible to the audience. For mov...
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The Icelandic Voting System (2024)
It’s election season here in Iceland! The election is on Saturday, 30th of November, so next Saturday from when this is written. Every time elections are upcoming, somebody inevitably asks me how the voting system here works, probably expecting a simple answer. So, here’s a stab at it. Iceland uses a biproportional…
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Restoring the Galaxian3 Theatre 6, 1992 six player arcade machine
Introduction During the late 1980s, Namco set out to create the world’s largest arcade game. The result was Galaxian3: Project Dragoon; a 28 player behemoth that debuted in April 1990 at the …
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A Map of British Dialects (2023)
This map took me a long time to make, and is very detailed, but will always be incomplete and inaccurate due to the nature of language. Why this map is so detailed The diversity of English dialects in the United Kingdom is enormous. It’s common for people from either side of a river, mountain, or […]
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How a Forgotten Battle Created a More Peaceful World
The legacy of Solferino is in more danger than ever
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How the U.S. became a science superpower
Prior to WWII the U.S was a distant second in science and engineering. By the time the war was over, U.S. science and engineering had blown past the British, and led the world for 85 years. It happ…
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Why is there a “small house” in IBM's Code page 437?
There's a small house in the moddle of IBM's Code Page 437. Why?
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Modern 6502
Mike Kohn's music, software, and electronics projects.
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Hunt for Red October 1990 (2016)
Visual Effects Supervisor - Scott Squires Visual Effects Director of Photography - Patrick Sweeney The effects for this movie were orig...
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Photographs of 19th Century Japan
A world of dew
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Obituary for Cyc
After 40 years, 30 million rules, 200 million dollars, 2000 person-years, and many promises, Cyc has failed to reach intellectual maturity, and may never will. Exacerbated by the secrecy and insularity of Cycorp, there remains no evidence of its general intelligence.
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