691
On the nature of computing science (1984)
Now this summer school draws to a close, it seems appropriate to try to put its topic into some perspective
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The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 4,253 posts.
History & Retro Computing
Any year
692
Decoding the telephony signals in Pink Floyd's 'The Wall'
I'm one of the founders at Corelatus. Our niche is telecom hardware for the E1/T1 and SDH/SONET interfaces. I work with layer 2 signalling, i.e SS7 MTP-2, ATM and frame relay, and the Erlang control system for our embedded hardware.
693
The death of Glitch, the birth of Slack
[This post is about the day that Glitch failed, and how that failure created the opportunity to make Slack. We're sharing it here (out of chronological order) to mark 12 years since the famous pivot.] “We have to shut down the game.” Stewart Butterfield said. I looked at him
694
A data table thousands of years old (2020)
I knew that data tables had been around a long time, but I didn't appreciate how long until I read recently about account-keeping in ancient Mesopotamia.
695
DOS APPEND
For a long time, I couldn’t quite grasp what the DOS APPEND command could possibly be good for. Until I came across a situation which APPEND was made for.
696
Is stuff online worth saving?
I’ll admit, the question took me back a bit. But I’d say yes, it is.
697
Running NetBSD on IBM ThinkPad 380Z
Launched in 1998, the 380Z was one very fine ThinkPad. It was the last ThinkPad to come in the classic bulky and rectangular form factor. It was also one of the first to feature a huge 13.3" TFT display, powerful 233MHz Pentium II, and whopping 160 megs of RAM.
698
The Power Mac 4400
In November 1996, Apple released the Power Macintosh 4400 with a starting price of $1,725. Also sold as the Power Macintosh 7220, it’d be easy to write this machine off as just another grain of sand on the beige beach that was Apple’s product line in the 1990s. I mean, just look at this thing, pictured here with an…
699
Nokia 5110 – Back from the Dead (2022)
I loved my Nokia 5110 and I wonder if it was possible to breathe new life into this long-shelved and still-memed mobile phone. As it turns out, not only is it possible, but it's going to be a lot easier than I anticipated.
700
25 Years of Dillo
Back in 1999, a group of developers lead by Jorge Arellano Cid forked the Gzilla/Armadillo code originally developed by Raph Levien, and began working on what is now known as the Dillo web browser.
701
The Antikythera mechanism – 254:19 ratio
A couple of followups on a recent episode of In Our Time.
702
Silicon Valley Tea Party a.k.a. the great 1998 Linux revolt take II (1999)
Anyway, here's what happened: Not to say that big brother is everywhere, but short of having microsoft people monitoring our lists and newsgroups (with wouldn't overly surprise me, after all they also tried a PR compain with magazines, posing as simple users who liked microsoft products), the announcement was…
703
Donald Bitzer has died
CHM remembers Fellow Don Bitzer, computer pioneer who co-invented the flat-panel plasma display and was called the "father of PLATO.”
704
The Rise and Fall of Ashton-Tate (2023)
Vulcan & dBASE
705
Fermat's Last Theorem – how it’s going
So I’m two months into trying to teach a proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem to a computer. We already have one interesting story, which I felt was worth sharing.
706
The Albuquerque "Broken Arrow" Nuclear Accident
In 1957, a B-36 nuclear bomber accidentally dropped a Mark 17 hydrogen bomb while landing at Kirtland Air Force Base just outside of Albuquerque NM. Mark 17 hydrogen bomb, on display at the Nationa…
707
"All your base are belong to us" intro to my 2004 MIT Spam Conference talk
As I've mentioned before my talk at the 2004 MIT Spam Conference was about using one machine learning system to beat another. In that case ...
708
The Myth of Bananaland
The marketing and reality of the United Fruit Company
709
Reverse engineering the Sega Channel game image file format
Sega Channel was a games-on-demand service that gave cable subscribers access to a library of around 50 Sega Genesis games per month in exchange for a monthly fee (typically $10-$15/month depending on the cable provider). It operated between June 1994 (with a nationwide rollout in December 1994) and June 1998. Cable…
710
711
Why did clothing become boring?
An investigation into when, how, and why everyone started dressing the same — and what it was like when they didn't
712
They don't make them like that any more: the Yamaha DX7 keyboard
Nothing says ‘80s pop’ like a DX7.
713
Tweaking Stunt Island's 30-year-old 3D engine
Note: the patch is available at the end of the article ( HERE ). This post is about its making-of.
714
The Problem with Sci-Fi Body Armor
Bret Devereaux (A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry)2024130 points62 commentsHistory & Retro Computing details
This week we’re covering the winning topic from the latest ACOUP Senate poll, which is a look at some of the odd designs and mechanics for futuristic science fiction body armor, particularly …
715
The Influence of Bell Labs
We’ve talked previously about Bell Labs’ long, storied history as an innovation engine and a generator of new technology.
716
The UX of Lego Interface Panels (2020)
LEGO interface panels are beautiful, iconic, and great for learning interface design basics. I bought 52 of them from BrickLink to explore the design, layout and organisation of complex interfaces.
717
MIT Aluminum Bicycle Project 1974 (2016)
1974 MIT Aluminum Bicycle Project, we describe some of Marc’s design, the frames he and Harriet built in Shawn Buckleys IAP course, and how these played a role in the Klein vs. Cannondale patent litigation in the mid-1980s.
718
Vesuvius Challenge: First letters found in new scroll
PHerc. 172 (Scroll 5) is here.
719
The Art and Mathematics of Genji-Ko
You might think it’s unlikely for any interesting mathematics to arise from incense appreciation, but that’s only because you’re unfamiliar with the peculiar character of Muromachi (室町) era Japanese nobles. There has never been a group of people, in any time or place, who were so driven to display their sophistication…
720
The capacitor that Apple soldered incorrectly at the factory
There have been some past rumblings on the internet about a capacitor being installed backwards in Apple’s Macintosh LC III . The LC III was a “pizza box” Mac model produced from early 1993 to early 1994, mainly targeted at the education market. It also manifested as various consumer Performa models: the 450, 460…