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Eclipse: The Demo that Sold 3D to Nintendo
How a 17-year-old in the UK set the course for Nintendo's future.
New
The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 422 posts.
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The 8-bit era: Eight processor designs
Why do the 8-bit designs of the 1970s still generate so much interest?
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Inércia 2023
Filipe Cruz (aka psenough) invited me to Inércia 2023, a local Demoscene event organized by the Associação Inércia that took place in the infamous Incrível Almadense. I’ve done my fair share of bouncing ball assembly demos in the 80s and others more recently, but I don’t qualify as a demoscener, not even by the lowest…
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History of the PDF
Explore the remarkable history of the PDF. This ubiquitous format, which has shaped the way we share and view documents, has a story as compelling as its widespread use. Discover why the PDF, often criticized yet universally used, continues to be a vital part of our digital world in 2023.
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All the hominins made tools
A study of associations between stone tool evidence and fossil hominin remains shows that a wide range of species made stone artifacts.
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A Personal History of APL (1982)
October 1982 TR-03.214 A PERSONAL HISTORY OF APL by Michael S. Montalbano International Business Machines Corporation General Products Division Santa Teresa Laboratory San Jose, California A PERSONAL HISTORY OF APL Introduction I have several reasons for calling this talk a personal history. For one, I want to make it…
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The analog computer for the Nike missile system (2001)
Nike computer - Installed in class room, not BC van. From Rolf Goerigk Left rack has the power supplies - outputs about 7 different voltages. Top panel is switches, meters, voltage warning lights. (Note: in the van installation, this rack is on the right side of the computer.) Middle two racks - operational amplifies…
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The camel, the rope, and the needle's eye
Camel or rope? Examining the Greek word ‘kamilos’ and the origins of a persistent myth about the Bible.
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FPGAs and the renaissance of retro hardware
Almost every few weeks, a new and exciting retro hardware project is announced. These are truly …
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How Apple's developers reflashed Mac ROMs in the '90s
After I wrote about the possibility of programmable Mac ROM SIMMs in Quadras a couple of months ago, I suspected that there had been a way for developers at Apple in the 68k Mac era to reflash the ROM in their Macs during development, just like BIOS updates on PCs. The reason I believed this is because the ROM SIMM…
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Windows NT: Peeking into the Cradle
A review of "Showstopper!" by G. Pascal Zachary and my own reflections
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First Is the Worst: Nintendo's Color TV Game 6 and 15
If you told Yamauchi Fusajiro that the little playing card business he had just started would one day sell video game consoles, he would have no idea what yo...
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Why 56k is the fastest dial up modem speed
10stripe is a collection of computer and technology information, providing answers to common questions and concerns.
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Cash Cows
He was born, farmed, and died at Dishley, much like his father before him. But Robert Bakewell, unlike most people, caught the improving mentality, or attitude — the one thing all inventors, both then and now, have in common — which had him viewing everything around him in terms of its capacity for betterment. The…
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Interesting features of John Harrison's sea clocks
I recently got to see John Harrison's sea clocks at the Royal Observatory at Greenwich. I recommend visiting if you get the chance. This post is about some of the interesting things I observed.
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The story of titanium
The earth contains a lot of titanium - it’s the ninth most abundant element in the earth’s crust.
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Margaret Mead, technocracy, and the origins of AI's ideological divide
The anthropologist helped popularize both techno-optimism and the concept of existential risk
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The Piccadilly line’s new air conditioned trains
A railway running through the forests of west Germany is seeing a very unusual sight at the moment - as a Piccadilly line tube train is running through the area.
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Knuth Airgaps and Knuth Buffers
Knuth knows how to maintain information hygeine.
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The Death Star and the Final Trench Run (2017)
Today, @vickschutz and I learned a detail about “Star Wars” (1977); it’s totally right there but we never grasped it. — Todd Vaziri (...
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Don't waste money on a math coprocessor they said
Well it’s been no secret, but OS/2 6.123 on my PS/2 model 80, is insanely unstable running simple MS-DOS based games (large EXE’s)
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The Apple Network Server's all-too-secret weapon (featuring PPC Toolbox)
Most of my systems are microcomputers (and commensurately sized), though I do have some moderately larger beasts: you've met homer , my 1987...
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Terry Pratchett and the Maggi Soup Adverts (2011)
Back in the 90s (starting with Moving Pictures) Terry Pratchett (yet to be knighted) changed his German publisher. A rather radical move in the market for someone who had been published by Heyne fo…
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Albert Einstein in 1939 composed a message for the people of AD 6939
Preparing a time capsule in 1939, the Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company asked Albert Einstein to compose a message for the people of AD 6939. He sent this: Our time is rich in inventive minds, the inventions of which could facilitate our lives considerably. We are crossing the seas by power and utilize…
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On medieval cats
The other night I was mindlessly scrolling about on my phone through Instagram, as one does when they really ought to go to bed but are stuck being entertained instead of resting, when I came upon …