1
Brute Force Colors
Using modern brute force approach to improve image quality on retro computers, by Arnaud Carré
New
The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 298 posts.
2
First TV Image of Mars: Interplanetary color by numbers (2016)
For the longest time I had seen this framed image entitled “The First TV Image of Mars” in an out of the way place at JPL. I loved taking people there showing them this low res image and how it had been made by coloring numbers that were stapled to a wall. When I got to curate an exhibition about data and art, I had…
3
A seamstress who solved the ancient mystery of the Argonaut
“I armed myself with patience and courage, and only after several months managed to dissolve my doubts and see my research crowned with happy confirmation.”
4
Stranger Things and the Amiga 1000
About a year ago, I cancelled my Netflix subscription. One of the few shows listed on the "plus" side when I made my decision was Stranger Things: an entertaining series with an excellent first and good second season. In short, I'm a fan of the show - though my appreciation of it doesn't come near my fanatical passion…
5
Installing an Ethernet card and video card and other upgrades for a Mac SE/30
But there’s only one slot, you say? It’s all a matter of using a clever part to adapt a pass-through.
6
Win16 Retro Development
Several months ago I had a go at producing a high resolution 256-color driver for Windows 3.1. The effort was successful but is not yet complete. Along the way I re-learned many things I had forgotten, and learned several new ones. This blog entry is based on notes I made during development.
7
“News is what somebody does not want you to print – all the rest is advertising”
George Orwell? Alfred Harmsworth? William Randolph Hearst? L. E. Edwardson? Robert W. Sawyer? Mark Rhea Byers? Brian R. Roberts? Malcolm Muggeridge? Katharine Graham? Lord Rothermere? Lord Northcliffe? Anonymous?
8
Building a website like it's 1999
I'm on a bit of a mission this year to bring back the spirit of the old web. The creativity and flair of the late 90s and early 2000s. So I've recreated some of that old web magic, in modern HTML, CSS and JS.
9
The Reliability Trap: The crash of Emirates flight 521 (2020)
On the 3rd of August 2016, an Emirates Boeing 777 landing in Dubai attempted a last second go-around after touching down too far along the…
10
How Pitfall builds its world (2021)
Games for the Atari 2600 were quite constrained. When Warren Robinett first pitched the idea that would become Adventure , a game where you would explore a world with many rooms and pick up items to help you along the way, he was denied because it wasn't thought feasible. And it made sense to do so. This was the late…
11
Emulating an iPod Touch 1G and iPhoneOS 1.0 using QEMU (Part I)
My personal website.
12
I still use Flash
How I Still Use Flash in 2022
13
Did insurance fire brigades let uninsured buildings burn?
This paper derives from a short, time-bound, review of the literature, which sought to investigate the question “Did Insurance Fire Brigades let uninsured buildings burn?”. The question is set in the context of property fire insurance in London, from 1680. The situation was possibly comparable with other large British…
14
How many computers are in your computer? (2021)
Any ‘computer’ is made up of hundreds of separate computers plugged together, any of which can be hacked. I list some of these parts.
15
The strange case of BeOS, SRS and the silent Power Mac 6500
Tonight's story time: the Power Macintosh that wouldn't make any sound in BeOS R5, how I figured out the problem, and how I hacked the sound...
16
Balloon framing is worse-is-better (2021)
Today in the US, most houses and apartments are built using light framed wood construction. This system consists of load bearing walls made from 2x4s or 2x6s, which support a wood-framed floor or roof - usually either trusses, joists, or engineered i-joists. This system is a variant of a framing style known as balloon…
17
Getting a Psion 5 palmtop from 1997 online via PPP (and a Raspberry Pi)
Creating the PiRS232 and playing with the Pi over serial has been leading towards an idea - I wanted to create a small, battery powered device, a sidecar that I could carry with my Psion and use as portable Linux terminal. I also managed to turn it into an Internet...
18
19
Damnit I slipped and (mostly) built an Amiga 500
EDIT - the original article has an image of the PCB with the floppy power connector mounted the WRONG WAY. This is the INCORRECT WAY. Do NO...
20
How the 8086 processor's microcode engine works
The 8086 microprocessor was a groundbreaking processor introduced by Intel in 1978. It led to the x86 architecture that still dominates de...
21
Roman Egypt was a strange province
Bret Devereaux (A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry)2022219 points53 commentscited by 3History & Retro Computing details
Welcome back! We are back from our November hiatus and thus back to regular weekly posts! This week we’re going to answer the runner-up question in the last ACOUP Senate poll (polls in which …
22
Quarter-Scale Retrocomputing
Creating a quarter-scale replica of the iconic BeBox computer, complete with blinkenlights and custom case design
23
Rereading: The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder (2017)
by James Wallace Harris, Friday, January 6, 2017 I first read The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder just after it came out in 1981, before it won the Pulitzer and National Book awards in 1982. …
24
25
A bug fix in the 8086 microprocessor, revealed in the die's silicon
The 8086 microprocessor was a groundbreaking processor introduced by Intel in 1978. It led to the x86 architecture that still dominates de...
26
Unix's technical history is mostly old now
You're probably reading this page because you've attempted to access some part of my blog (Wandering Thoughts) or CSpace , the wiki thing it's part of. Unfortunately you're using a browser version that my anti-crawler precautions consider suspicious, most often because it's too old (most often this applies to versions…
27
The Great Renaming 1985 – 1988 (2000)
The Great Renaming FAQ
28
The Last Ridge Racer
Well, this is a bit of a roller coaster tale that I’ve been meaning to share for a while. Before we start, let’s take a trip into the history books to set the scene. In October 1993, Na…
29
The genius of binary space partitioning in Doom (2019)
A short history of the data structure that powered the classic first-person shooter.
30
Hacker News Parody Thread (2013)
This page is intended to be a humorous parody of Hacker News . It is not in any way affiliated with Hacker News. The page's theme and layout are based on the original site. The usernames (with two exceptions) are intended to be fictitious.