1801
Knuth versus Email (1999)
I have been a happy man ever since January 1, 1990, when I no longer had an email address. I'd used email since about 1975, and it seems to me that 15 years of email is plenty for one lifetime.
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The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 3,229 posts.
History & Retro Computing
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1802
Reverse-engineering the 8086's Arithmetic/Logic Unit from die photos
The Intel 8086 processor was introduced in 1978, setting the course of modern computing. While the x86 processor family has supported 64-b...
1803
Bread, How Did They Make It? Part IV: Markets, Merchants and the Tax Man
Bret Devereaux (A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry)2020112 points12 commentscited by 4History & Retro Computing details
Thanks to our helpful volunteer narrator, this entire post series is now also available in audio format! As the fourth and final part (I, II, III) of our look at the basic structure of food product…
1804
Why Did Mozilla Remove XUL Add-Ons?
TL;DR: Firefox used to have a great extension mechanism based on the XUL and XPCOM. This mechanism served us well for a long time. However, it came at an ever-growing cost in terms of maintenance for both Firefox developers and add-on developers. On one side, this growing cost progressively killed any effort to make…
1805
1806
Lost Advanced Civilizations
Did life on Earth start on Earth, or did it start on Mars and move to Earth?
1807
1808
A 35-year-old bug in Patch found in efforts to restore 29-year-old BSD
A 35 Year Old Bug in Patch. Larry Wall posted patch 1.3 to mod.sources on May 8, 1985. A number of versions followed over the years. It's b...
1809
Using machine learning to recreate photorealistic portraits of Roman Emperors
Artistic interpretations of the 54 Roman emperors of the Principate, created with AI and historical references.
1810
How the 8086 processor handles power and clock internally
One under-appreciated characteristic of early microprocessors is the difficulty of distributing power inside the integrated circuit. While...
1811
Connecting a Macintosh SE to the Internet with a Raspberry Pi
How to connect a 68k Mac to the internet without an ethernet card!
1812
How We Got the Favicon (2017)
The favicon was a total experiment, the result of a bit of serendipity and luck.
1813
ThinkPad 560E
I’ve been idly looking for one of the mid-90s ThinkPads known to have perfect OpenStep/Rhapsody support for years as a fun collector piece, but been unwilling to pay eBay prices. The other week I scored a pristine IBM ThinkPad 560E for $20 in a Shopgoodwill auction, below is notes on getting it up and running, plus…
1814
Reverse-engineering the Intel 8086's instruction register
The Intel 8086 microprocessor is one of the most influential chips ever created; it led to the x86 architecture that dominates desktop an...
1815
Skate Warrior 1992, 1999, 2020
In The DV Rebel’s Guide, I used this still frame as an example of guerrilla filmmaking taken too far. Which may also be an apt description of the entire film from which it was taken.
1816
Reverse Engineering the PLA Chip in the Commodore 128
As I mentioned in my last post I’ve been working on reverse engineering the PLA chip in the C128. I’m now mostly done with this process so I think it’s time to share some of the findings.
1817
Tihle: A new emulator targeting TI graphing calculators
Today I’m publishing tihle, a new emulator targeting TI graphing calculators (currently only the 83+, but maybe others later). There’s rather a lot to say about it, but here I will discuss the motivation for a new emulator and the state of the art followed by technical notes on the design and initial development…
1818
Thoughts about the difference between European and American H/W and S/W design
I have just recently discovered that my previous post about Commodore BASIC went modestly viral, not only featuring on Hacknernews but getting its own story on Hackaday . Gosh. This in itself has provoked some discussion. Its also resulted in a lot of people telling me that NO COMMODORE WAS…
1819
The Secret Origin of the Action RPG
Who knew that the knowledge of the true progenitor of the action RPG would be hidden in a stuffy basement in Akihabara, Tokyo?
1820
Banned math book
The applied math classic Courant & Hilbert was banned in Nazi Germany. The US seized the copyright and published an English edition.
1821
1822
Bread, How Did They Make It?
Bret Devereaux (A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry)2020120 points32 commentscited by 30History & Retro Computing details
Thanks to our helpful volunteer narrator, this entire post series is now also available in audio format! This essay will hopefully be the first post in a series (II, III, IV, A) covering some of th…
1823
Imperial Wars Always Come Home
There’s a person I think about from time to time.
1824
Inside the 8086 processor, tiny charge pumps create a negative voltage
Introduced in 1978, the revolutionary Intel 8086 microprocessor led to the x86 processors used in most desktop and server computing today....
1825
You advocate a ________ approach to calendar reform (2013)
You advocate a ( ) solar ( ) lunar ( ) atomic approach to calendar reform. Your idea will not work. Here is why: ( ) solar years are real and the calendar year needs to sync with them ( ) solar days are real and the calendar day needs to sync with them ( ) the so...
1826
The Many Faces of an Undying Programming Language
This is a post I've been meaning to write for a while now: one anecdotally comparing programming languages in the Lisp family. I consider myself to be a Lisp hacker. Perhaps that much was obvious from the letter λ adorning my website's header, a reference to the λ-calculus which inspired John McCarthy to design the…
1827
Things Unexpectedly Named After People
Unfortunately, Rocket Lab does not seem to be named after seed investor/aerospace entrepreneur Mark Rocket .
1828
The event that eventually led to Newton writing and publishing the Principia
The event that would eventually lead to Isaac Newton writing and publishing his magnum opus, the Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (the Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy), too…
1829
The Intel 8086 processor's registers: from chip to transistors
The Intel 8086 microprocessor is one of the most influential chips ever created; it led to the x86 architecture that dominates desktop and...
1830
