1951
Was Google Earth Stolen?
[October, 2021]
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The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 4,253 posts.
History & Retro Computing
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1952
Hypertext Tools from the 80s
The pre-internet era was full of wonderful and very powerful systems that are well forgotten now, but we definitely can learn from them, try to understand why we had an enormous degradation in the 1990s and 2000s, and why we are enjoying hypertext systems renaissance now.
1953
Alan Kay on the context and catalysts of personal computing
Alan Kay — “father of personal computers" — is best known for his work on personal computing and for leading the team that developed Smalltalk.
1954
Pink Floyd's Young Lust – explained and demystified
Pink Floyd’s Young Lust has been a staple of rock radio for over 40 years. But many people are mystified about the section at the end when a “Mr. Floyd” in the United States attempts to make a collect call to “Mrs. Floyd” in England. There are many “beeps” and “boops” that for the untrained ear are just random sounds…
1955
The 100 MHz 6502
A 6502 (or 65C02) in an FPGA, running at 100 MHz, ready to plug into your vintage computer
1956
2,050-year-old Roman tomb offers insights on ancient concrete resilience
The unique mineral composition of the 2,050-year-old Roman tomb of Caecilia Metella could point the way toward more resilient and sustainable modern concrete structures.
1957
V7 Unix had no stack size limit, and when Unix acquired one
You're probably reading this page because you've attempted to access some part of my blog (Wandering Thoughts) or CSpace , the wiki thing it's part of. Unfortunately you're using a browser version that my anti-crawler precautions consider suspicious, most often because it's too old (most often this applies to versions…
1958
Len Sassaman and Satoshi: A cypherpunk history
We’ve lost far too many hackers to suicide. What if Satoshi was one of them?
1959
1960
1961
The Insane Innovation of TI Calculator Hobbyists
In the mid-to-late 2000s, you either knew, or were, that kid in grade school. You know. The one who could put games on your graphing calculator. You may be surprised to learn that some of these people didn’t exist totally in a vaccuum. There was in fact a thriving scene of hackers who had bent these calculators to…
1962
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2021
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2021 was awarded jointly to Benjamin List and David W.C. MacMillan "for the development of asymmetric organocatalysis"
1963
The Nobel Prize in Physics 2021
The Nobel Prize in Physics 2021 was awarded "for groundbreaking contributions to our understanding of complex physical systems" with one half jointly to Syukuro Manabe and Klaus Hasselmann "for the physical modelling of Earth’s climate, quantifying variability and reliably predicting global warming" and the other half…
1964
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2021
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2021 was awarded jointly to David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian "for their discoveries of receptors for temperature and touch"
1965
A Macintosh History 85.10
The creation of the original Macintosh has been extensively studied and written about, but what happened after it launched? What was it like to own a Macintosh in the mid-eighties? I intend to tell this story of the Macintosh through the pages of MacUser.
1966
Mac SE/30 Odyssey
I’ve always wanted an Apple Macintosh SE/30 . Released in 1989, they look quite a lot like the other members of the original “compact Mac” series, but pack in a ton of interesting features that the other compact Macs don’t have.
1967
The Martians of Budapest
The Martians of Budapest”, sometimes referred to as simply “The Martians” is a colloquial term used to describe a group of prominent Hungarian physicists and mathematicians who emigrated to the United States following the Great Purge of 1933. The term refers to—what appeared, from the perspective of Americans—to be a…
1968
Tanaka Hisashige, builder of the Myriad Year Clock (2016)
Japan's greatest inventor whose life span a formative period in the nation's history, Tanaka Hisashige built the Myriad Year Clock, a 1000-part masterpiece that's today a national treasure.
1969
Reverse-engineering an unusual IBM modem board from 1965
The vintage IBM circuit board below has a large metal block on it that caught my attention, so I investigated it in detail. It turns out t...
1970
The biggest churches in the world: Anglo-Norman eleventh-century cathedrals
Usually the idea of what a cathedral ought to be, that is, a colossal church building with a vast hall-like interior verging on the sublime, is said to originate in France in the twelfth century. A…
1971
Apple didn't revolutionize power supplies; new transistors did (2012)
The new biography Steve Jobs contains a remarkable claim about the power supply of the Apple II and its designer Rod Holt: [1] Instead o...
1972
1973
Alexander von Humboldt: the first Solarpunk
Humbolt was captivated by lush nature but loved humanity and the new technological developments. He believed that if we understand Nature and the laws governing her, we can create a sustainable future. He was the first Solarpunk and here are his ideas
1974
1975
1976
Found a program I wrote in 1981 and decided to bring it back to life
When you find a weird program from four decades ago and realize that it's yours.
1977
1978
2006: Dwarf Fortress
The text of Dwarf Fortress and procedural tales so expansive no human could ever explore them all.
1979
1980
The BYTE magazine covers by Robert Tinney
During the 1970s and 1980s, Robert Tinney illustrated some of the most amazing computer artwork for BYTE magazine.