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The worst-selling Microsoft software product of all time: OS/2 for the Mach 20
Count 'em on one hand.
New
The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 4,253 posts.
History & Retro Computing
Any year
1502
Atari 800 Winter Solstice Celebration Demo 2022
Every December, I try to make a little wintery demo to exercise one of 8bitworkshop’s platforms. This year, I chose the Atari 800 to test out the new native TypeScript emulator in 8bitworkshop. You...
1503
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.
1504
“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?
1505
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.
1506
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…
1507
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…
1508
Emulating an iPod Touch 1G and iPhoneOS 1.0 using QEMU (Part I)
My personal website.
1509
I still use Flash
How I Still Use Flash in 2022
1510
January 1, 2023 is Public Domain Day: Works from 1927 are open to all
Center for the Study of the Public Domain2022756 points461 commentsSociety, Policy & Culture details
By Jennifer Jenkins, Director of Duke’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain January 1, 2023 is Public Domain Day: Works from 1927 are open to all! On January 1, 2023, copyrighted works from 1927 will enter the US public domain. 1 They will be free for all to copy, share, and build upon. These […]
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The APL Source Code (2012)
Thousands of programming languages were invented in the first 50 years of the age of computing. Many of them were similar, and many followed a traditional, evolutionary path from their predecessors. What eventually became APL was first a mathematical notation, not as a computer programming language.
1513
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…
1514
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.
1515
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...
1516
The Flickr Foundation
Welcome to the new home of the Flickr Foundation! We are a new US 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to keeping the wonderful Flickr collection around for 100 years. Big goals, little steps.
1517
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…
1518
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...
1519
Yale’s 367-year-old water bond still pays interest (2015)
While most of the Beinecke’s holdings are by their nature dead — their original purpose being fulfilled — the water bond still pays annual interest.
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1521
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...
1522
1523
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...
1524
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 …
1525
PostScript: A Digital Printing Press
CHM publicly releases the source code for the breakthrough printing technology, PostScript.
1526
GIMP Turns 27
Happy 27th birthday to the GNU Image Manipulation Program
1527
The sad history of Unicode printf-style format specifiers in Visual C++ (2019)
Getting ahead of the standard, which went a different way.
1528
Quarter-Scale Retrocomputing
Creating a quarter-scale replica of the iconic BeBox computer, complete with blinkenlights and custom case design
1529
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. …
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