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H-Bomb: A Frank Lloyd Wright typographic mystery
The famed architect made a surprising error on one of his most notable buildings — or did he? A deep dive to uncover the truth.
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The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 3,229 posts.
History & Retro Computing
Any year
212
The Eternal Promise: A History of Attempts to Eliminate Programmers
From COBOL in the 1960s to AI in the 2020s, every generation promises to eliminate programmers. Explore the recurring cycles of software simplification hype.
213
Reading English from 1000 AD
The past was not as foreign as we think.
214
Unsung heroes: Flickr's URLs scheme
A blog about software craft and quality
215
Coding Tricks Used in the C64 Game Seawolves (2025)
An in-depth overview of some of the unusual and very advanced technical tricks used in the Commodore 64 game, Seawolves.
216
Old School Visual Effects: The Cloud Tank (2010)
INT. WAREHOUSE - NIGHT Following my recent rants about computer generated effects ( here and here ), I thought it would be fun to look i...
217
How far back in time can you understand English?
An experiment in language change
218
My 1981 adventure game is now a multimedia extravaganza
Over the last few weeks, I created a computer game set in the Arctic. Or maybe I’ve been working on it since 1981. It all depends on how you count.
219
A brief history of barbed wire fence telephone networks (2024)
If you look at the table of contents for my book, Other Networks: A Radical Technology Sourcebook, you’ll see that entries on networks before/outside the internet are arranged first by underl…
220
The "Crown of Nobles" Noble Gas Tube Display (2024)
In my day job I work with ion thrusters for spacecraft, which are essentially electric-powered rockets that fling Xenon gas out at super high speeds to provide thrust and allow satellites to change…
221
The missing digit of Stela C
One bad thing about archeologists is that some of the successful ones get a big head. People used to think the Olmecs, who made these colossal stone heads, were contemporary with the Mayans. But in…
222
Reverse Engineering the Prom for the SGI O2
mattst88's blog - Reverse Engineering the PROM for the SGI O2
223
My Grandma Was a Fed – Lessons from Digitizing Hours of Childhood
In Which I go into Great Detail About Digitizing Video8 and Learn My Grandmama Lived With a Prostitute
224
Rome is studded with cannon balls (2022)
Did you know that Rome is studded with cannon balls? Not many know that the city is full of sites where you can still see cannon balls. We’ll accompany you and share with you the story of the many cannon balls you can see around the city. Come and have a look for yourself! Come to Rome to see the city and its cannon…
225
Unseen Footage of Atari Battlezone Arcade Cabinet Production
Note: I’ve seen some online chatter about the possibility that the footage shared in this post could be AI generated (which is pretty depressing, but here we are I suppose). I just wanted to …
226
Defeating a 40-year-old copy protection dongle
That’s right — this little device is what stood between me and the ability to run an even older piece of software that I recently unearthed during an expedition of software archaeology.
227
The mountain that weighed the Earth
Suppose you want to find out how much you weigh. It’s easy enough – get a scale, stand on it, and read the number. Now suppose you want to know how much the Earth weighs. You get out a scale and…hm…
228
Television is 100 years old today
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229
Sony Data Discman
Let's look at this little gizmo Sony produced in the early 1990s.
230
Profession by Isaac Asimov (1957)
Profession , copyright ©1957 by Street and Smith Publications, Inc., from ISAAC ASIMOV: THE COMPLETE STORIES OF VOL. 1 by Isaac Asimov. Used by permission of Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc. For on-line information about other Random House, Inc. books and authors, see the Internet Web site at…
231
The 3D Software Rendering Technology of 1998's Thief: The Dark Project (2019)
In 1998 Looking Glass Studios released the stealth game Thief: The Dark Project . This was just as 3D hardware acceleration was taking off, so due to the development cycle it didn't use hardware acceleration; it was a purely software-rendered game.
232
Edge of Emulation: Game Boy Sewing Machines (2020)
Emulating the unknown: Controlling Sewing Machines with a Game Boy
233
How London cracked mobile phone coverage on the Underground
Dotted around London, there are a number of private hotels that aren’t the sort of hotel you might expect – they’re needed to make mobile phones work on the London Underground.
234
The Z80 Membership Card (2015)
The microcomputer is an incredible, revolutionary invention. Like the electric light, the printing press, and the wheel, it has changed the world. Without microcomputers, the internet, and perhaps even "life as we know it" would not be possible!
235
Erich von Däniken has died
It is with great sadness and shock that we must announce that Erich von Däniken passed away on January 10, 2026.
236
The Olivetti Company
Beautiful machines from a beautiful country
237
Max Payne – two decades later – Graphics Critique (2021)
It has been two decades since the video game Max Payne was release on July 23, 2001. The game itself was some incredible homage to The Ma...
238
How Markdown took over the world
A blog about making culture. Since 1999.
239
“Food JPEGs” in Super Smash Bros. and Kirby Air Riders
Have you ever noticed that the food graphics in Super Smash Bros. and Kirby Air Riders are flat “billboarded” stock images of food? This artistic decision from director Masahiro Sakurai has per...
240
Dealing with abandonware (2024)
reverse engineering, abandonware