1681
Did the early medieval era ever take place?
On the “phantom time hypothesis”, the bizarre conspiracy theory that 297 years of European history were entirely made up.
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History & Retro Computing
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1682
Unraveling the linothorax mystery, or how linen armor came to dominate our lives (2013)
Guest post by Alicia Aldrete As the wife, research assistant, and sometimes coauthor of an ancient historian who teaches at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, I had expected to spend many hours…
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Robertson vs. Torx screw drives (2021)
I’m going to get straight to the point and say that it’s time for Robertson screws to be retired and supplanted by Torx. This posting is to explain why and is partly motivated by lots o…
1685
Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars
The games of Revolution Software bore the stamp of the places in which they were conceived. Work on Beneath a Steel Sky , the company’s breakthrough graphic adventure, began in Hull, a grim postindustrial town in the north of England, and those environs were reflected in the finished product’s labyrinths of polluted…
1686
Battersea Power Station in London unveils the newly restored Control Room A
⦁ Battersea Power Station has revealed the fully restored Control Room A, the first of the Grade II* listed building’s two original Control Rooms which
1687
Linux Kernel Module written in Scratch (a visual programming language for kids)
Seriously. Someone did this. Because... why not?
1688
Pre-Modern Battlefields (2015)
Image Source.”Man does not enter battle to fight, but for victory. He does everything that he can to avoid the first and obtain the second” –Ardant du Picq, Battle Studies: Ancien…
1689
X-ray reverse-engineering a hybrid module from 1960s Apollo test equipment
In this blog post, I reverse-engineer a hybrid module that was used for ground-testing of equipment from the Apollo space program. But fir...
1690
Microsoft beat Apple to buy PowerPoint for $14M (2016)
Thanks for stopping by 👋🏾 Why not check out our file conversion API – convert 100s of different file formats in just one line of code (we even support PowerPoint files!) This is part one of a series of… Read More Deal of the century? How Microsoft beat Apple to buy PowerPoint for $14 million
1691
Mouse Heaven or Mouse Hell?
Explore how biologist John Calhoun's controversial mouse experiments sparked debates about overpopulation, urban life, and human society's future.
1692
Why hasn't Middle Earth had an Industrial Revolution?
Part I of Why hasn't Middle Earth had an Industrial Revolution?
1693
How Websites Die
I recently started compiling a list of defunct blogging platforms . It’s been interesting to see how websites die — from domain parking pages to timeouts to blank pages to outdated TLS cipher errors, there are a multitude of different ways.
1694
3D Diagrams of London Underground Stations
TfL has released a batch of documents which show almost every underground station in glorious 3D format.
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Total Generalship: Commanding Pre-Modern Armies, Part IIIb: Officers
Bret Devereaux (A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry)2022157 points22 commentsHistory & Retro Computing details
This is the continuation of the third part of our three(ish) part (I, II, IIIa, IIIb, IIIc) series looking at the role of the general in commanding pre-gunpowder armies in battle. Last time we look…
1697
Random Ultima Online anecdote #2 – Horses inside players (2014)
I just stumbled across this old story I told somewhere, and thought I’d share more widely.
1698
The integrated timetable of Switzerland
When people talk about great nation-wide public transit systems, names such as Japan or Switzerland are often mentioned. In this article I will show what makes Switzerland’s network so unique and why it is has become so popular.
1699
Tolkien’s Little-Known Original Drawings for the First Edition of “The Hobbit”
A lively new look at one of the most beloved fantasy stories of all time.
1700
PC Engine / TurboGrafx-16 Architecture
An in-depth analysis that explains how this console works internally
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A prank cursor resulted in an employee being fired before they started (2020)
Don't try this at home.
1704
ACM Makes Thousands of Research Articles Freely Available; Opens First 50 Years
World’s Largest Computing Society Makes Thousands of Research Articles Freely Available; Opens First 50 Years Backfile
1705
“Code” 2nd Edition
I am overjoyed to announce that the 2nd edition of my book Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software will be published by Pearson on August 19, 2022. As you can see, the covers of the two editions are nearly identical except that the 2nd edition uses the “dark mode” option:
1706
Xbox 360 Architecture
An in-depth analysis that explains how this console works internally
1707
50th Anniversary of the Mother of All Demos (2018)
I was asked to give a toast in celebration of the 50th Anniversary of [The Mother of All Demos](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mother_of_All_Demos) so I spent some time reflecting on Engelbart's w...
1708
How much did the Apollo program cost?
The U.S spent $25.8 billion on Project Apollo ($309 billion when adjusted for inflation). This dataset provides annual expenditures and additional cost…
1709
The first thing that ever sold online was pizza (2018)
If you happened to live in Santa Cruz in 1994 you could sit down at your computer, open up your […]
1710
Windows 9x Video Minidriver HD+
The OS/2 Museum has made available the first version of a display driver disk for Windows 9x running on VirtualBox . The driver uses a linear framebuffer and supports 8/16/24/32bpp modes with resolutions up to 1920×1200 pixels (see more below). The driver is not accelerated but tends to be very speedy on modern…