1951
Demoscene, the secret behind Finnish game industry
This is my story as a game developer. It is also a story of how the Finnish game industry came to be.
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1952
Lisping at JPL (2002)
This is the story of the rise and fall of Lisp at the Jet Propulsion Lab as told from my personal (and highly biased) point of view. I am not writing in my official capacity as an employee of JPL, nor am I in any way representing the official position of JPL. (This will become rather obvious shortly.)
1953
Inside the digital clock from a Soyuz spacecraft
We recently obtained a clock that flew on a Soyuz space mission. 1 The clock, manufactured in 1984, is much more complex inside than you'd ...
1954
Gary Starkweather died on December 26, 2019
Gary Starkweather passed away on Dec 26, 2019 at the age of 81.
1955
1956
The President and the Bomb, Part IV
Why the problem of "the President and the bomb" isn't about the "crazy President," but something far more pernicious and possible.
1957
CGA in 1024 Colors – A New Mode: The Illustrated Guide (2015)
VileR's blog: old school PCs, games, graphics, programming, fonts, demos, and so on.
1958
Which Machines Do Computer Architects Admire? (2013)
The Toolsmith Conference was held in Chapel Hill, NC, in October, 2001, to honor Fred Brooks. Dr. Brooks was a student of Howard Aiken at Harvard, joined IBM to work on the Stretch Project, and later served as chief architect of the IBM S/360. He founded the Computer Science Department at UNC-Chapel Hill in 1964 and…
1959
Why is Wednesday, November 17, 1858 the base time for OpenVMS?
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1960
The Astonishing Prescience of Nam June Paik
I hadn’t heard of Nam June Paik until I went to his exhibition at Tate Modern a few weeks ago.
1961
Six works of Computer Science-Fiction (2015)
Computer Science-Fiction 1 is not actually fiction. Instead, these are books of computer science and/or programming that when you read them you can’t quite believe that what they claim is reality. Indeed, very often works of Computer Science-Fiction push the limits of your understanding of just what constitutes the…
1962
1963
What Happened in the 2010s
My friend Steve Kane suggested I take a longer view in my pair of year end posts this year: What, no decade end/decade ahead posts? 😕 — Steven Kane (@stevenkane) December 26, 2019 And so I will. Here are the big things that happened in tech, startups, business, and more in the decade that is […]
1964
1965
Installing A/UX on the Quadra 610 (2018)
In this post, I’m going to go through the process of setting up Apple’s A/UX on a Quadra 610. It’s been a long time in the making - I think I had the hardware for nearly a year before I finally got A/UX running properly!
1966
NSA's Backdoor Key from Lotus Notes (2002)
Before the US crypto export regulations were finally disolved the export version of Lotus Notes used to include a key escrow / backdoor feature called differential cryptography. The idea was that they got permission to export 64 bit crypto if 24 of those bits were encrypted for the NSA's public key. The NSA would then…
1967
Debugging a Live Saturn V
We all have stories, as engineers, of fixing some crazy thing at the last minute right before the demo goes up. We have all encountered situations where we needed to fix something that was our fault and we needed to fix it now.
1968
Welcome to Gentoo is Rice, the Volume goes to 11 here.
Welcome, this page is dedicated to the Linux Community's greatest ambassadors, Gentoo users. Like the annoying teenager next door with a 90hp import sporting a 6 foot tall bolt-on wing, Gentoo users are proof that society is best served by roving gangs of armed vigilantes, dishing out swift, cold justice with baseball…
1969
Building a new Windows 3.1 app in 2019: A Slack Client
In October 2019, my company SP Digital held an internal hackathon. My colleague Subhransu and I worked on a whacky idea of writing a brand-new Windows 3.1 app which was an OS released almost 30 years ago. The idea we chose was a Slack client. After all, Slack clients exist for most platforms but I’m certain one does…
1970
Interface Builder's Alternative Lisp Timeline (2013)
Denison “Denny” Bollay is one of the guys at ExperTelligence that crafted the first Interface Builder (IB) and showed Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. Jeff Wishnie introduced me (thanks dude) recently, and I’ve been talking to Denny as I have an agenda - Pseudo-declarative UIs - that is in complete opposition to my…
1971
Why Nukemap Isn't on Google Maps Anymore
The top-secret story of why NUKEMAP switched from Google Maps to Mapbox+Leaflet.
1972
The soul of a new computer company
Over the summer, I described preparing for my next expedition. I’m thrilled to announce that the expedition is now plotted, the funds are raised, and the bags are packed: together with Steve Tuck and Jess Frazelle , we have started Oxide Computer Company .
1973
The Battlefield After the Battle
Bret Devereaux (A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry)2019105 points18 commentsHistory & Retro Computing details
Today we’re going to talk about what a pre-modern battlefield might look like after the battle is over. Obvious content warning, since this post is going to talk about (and show pictures of) …
1974
Airmash – a game that refused to die
The game Airmash was announced on Dec 10 2017 on Hacker News by a user named fivesigma. The game became very succesful in the year to come. But it would have a very rocky history.
1975
The Siege of Gondor, Part I: Professionals Talk Logistics
Bret Devereaux (A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry)2019404 points166 commentscited by 6History & Retro Computing details
(Note: Thanks to the effort of a kind reader, this post is now available in audio format! The playlist for the entire series may be found here.) This is the first part of a six-part (II, III, IV, V…
1976
Early Chinese World Maps (2010)
I recently came across this fascinating world map while researching the history of the Jesuit missions in seventeenth century China . Appar...
1977
How the Great Pyramid at Giza Looked in 2560 BCE
The current outer surface of the Great Pyramid at Giza is made of rough limestone blocks, colored a dark sandy brown from hundreds of years of pollution and wea
1978
1979
The Early History of Usenet, Part I: The Technological Setting
Usenet—Netnews—was conceived almost exactly 40 years ago this month. To understand where it came from and why certain decisions were made the way they were, it’s important to understand the technological constraints of the time.
1980
Tunnel Boring Machines (2018)
Meet the Most Interesting Tunnel Boring Machines