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The History of Microsoft Encarta
Searchable Human Knowledge
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The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 4,253 posts.
History & Retro Computing
Any year
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There should be more cash prizes for solving historical mysteries
On the Herculaneum scroll and the underrated value of historical knowledge
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Good times create weak men (2019)
Software abstraction ladder becomes too tall and starts to fall
1145
Hal Finney Was Not Satoshi Nakamoto
A compilation of evidence that Hal Finney and Satoshi Nakamoto were different people.
1146
Amiga ASCII Art
My thesis on Amiga ASCII art translated to English.
1147
A Brief Introduction to Military Pillboxes
Explore some of the anti-invasion defences built across England during the First and Second World Wars.
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Teaching Apple Cyberdog 1.0 new tricks (featuring OpenDoc)
In the distant nethermists of time, documents once briefly ruled the earth (or at least Mac OS), and to that end I managed to find a verrr...
1151
"Hacker News" for retro computing and gaming
I noticed over time that I was drawn to the retro computing or gaming posts on Hacker News . So, I've set up a dedicated web site in the sam...
1152
The story of ispc: origins (part 1) (2018)
This one time, at Intel, I wrote a compiler...
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Examining the silicon dies of the Intel 386 processor
You might think of the Intel 386 processor (1985) as just an early processor in the x86 line, but the 386 was a critical turning point for m...
1154
The Banality of Genius: Notes on Peter Jackson's Get Back (2022)
A Special Edition of The Ruffian
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The Beatles’ collaborative notes: Three ways to write a song
"Just say whatever comes into your head each time..."
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When XML in Word Became Illegal
Plus! A Sonos v. Google surprise, a 101 case rejects cert, and Celgene's REVLIMID
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First word discovered in unopened Herculaneum scroll by CS student
Vesuvius Challenge \$700,000 Grand Prize “now definitely achievable”
1158
The Evolution of Tunnel Boring Machines
Tunneling is an important technology for modern civilization, as a tunnel is often the only reasonable way to create a direct path between two points.
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Medieval staircases were not built going clockwise for the defender's advantage
This story has been making the rounds on the internet with a claim that you’ve probably been told during visits to castles, but, there’s no evidence for it whatsoever. In short the idea…
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2023 Nobel Prize in economics awarded to Claudia Goldin
The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2023 was awarded to Claudia Goldin "for having advanced our understanding of women’s labour market outcomes"
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MiniDisc Hacking
Most MiniDisc aficionados are aware of unit hacking to gain access to new features. The unit that perhaps benefits the most from this is the Sony MZ-N510, which also comes in the N520 and NF610 variants. The 2001 model R700 can be hacked to add many features of its upscale brother, the R900 , as well as the Type-R…
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Forty years of programming
I am about to turn forty-six. This means I have been programming for forty years, half of them professionally. During most of that time, I used a "standard" setup with 104 keyboard, a flat mouse, and a sitting desk.
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The Last Express
A moving train at night is an incredible place to hear stories. Like a campfire.
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Thirty Years Ago: MS-DOS 6.00
A retrospective on MS-DOS 6.00 and my small contributions to the product.
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Nobel Prize Chemistry 2023
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2023 was awarded to Moungi G. Bawendi, Louis E. Brus and Aleksey Yekimov "for the discovery and synthesis of quantum dots"
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Dick Smith’s Wizzard-ry 8 (Bit)
Homemade clone of the Dick Smith Wizzard/VTech CreatiVision game console.
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Translating Latin demonology manuals with GPT-4 and Claude
At long last, a real-world use case for AI!
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Nobel Prize in Physics Awarded to Agostini, Krausz, and L’Huillier
The Nobel Prize in Physics 2023 was awarded to Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz and Anne L’Huillier "for experimental methods that generate attosecond pulses of light for the study of electron dynamics in matter"
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Windows NT 3.1 on Dec Alpha AXP
As I was preparing the Windows NT RISC exhibit for VCF west , I realized that I’m missing a rather important piece of the history. While I was showing the potentially last DEC Alpha Windows build ever – AXP64 2210 , I don’t have anything earlier than NT 3.51. It would be nice to showcase the very first RTM version …
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Nobel Prize in Medicine awarded to Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2023 was awarded jointly to Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman "for their discoveries concerning nucleoside base modifications that enabled the development of effective mRNA vaccines against COVID-19"