2101
Recovering “lost” treasure-filled floppy discs with an oscilloscope
There are many good, modern solutions for reading data off old floppy discs and drives. Perhaps the best is the Greaseweazle : it's capable,...
New
The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 4,253 posts.
History & Retro Computing
Any year
2102
2103
The Time Everyone “Corrected” the World’s Smartest Woman (2015)
In 1990, Marilyn vos Savant correctly answered a probability puzzle in her column for Parade Magazine. And then, the world called her an idiot.
2104
So what’s wrong with 1975 programming? (2006)
Varnish is a powerful, flexible HTTP accelerator that speeds up web applications by caching content and optimizing delivery.
2105
2106
1988: P.R.E.S.T.A.V.B.A.
In communist Czechoslovakia, a network of teenage hackers discovers that text games are a completely uncensored medium.
2107
The origin of “tweet” at Twitter (2013)
Last week, one of my colleagues informed me that the word “tweet” was now included in the Oxford English Dictionary (see “Quiet announcement” at the end of the page.) The noun and verb tweet (in the social-networking sense) has just been added to the OED. This breaks at least one OED rule, namely that a […]
2108
Is your son a computer hacker? (2001)
As an enlightened, modern parent , I try to be as involved as possible in the lives of my six children. I encourage them to join team sports. I attend their teen parties with them to ensure no drinking or alcohol is on the premises. I keep a fatherly eye on the CDs they listen to and the shows they watch, the company…
2109
The Unix Magic Poster
I understand the classic UNIX Magic poster by Gary Overacre was distributed at past USENIX conferences, and I’ve known of it for years but now in confinement, I’ve decided I want one to hang in my ...
2110
Dave Herman’s contributions to Rust
I think the Rust language is a big success. When I think back on it I am in awe: so much had to go right to get where we are, and there were so many opportunities to go wrong. It took many tiny miracles for the Rust language to become what it has. Those miracles didn’t happen by accident though: each one was created…
2111
Bootstrapping an Amiga without a bootable floppy
I have just released a serial port based Amiga disk and file transfer tool, amigaXfer .
2112
The Alameda-Weehawken Burrito Tunnel (2007)
Who can imagine New York City without the Mission burrito? Like the Yankees, the Brooklyn Bridge or the bagel, the oversize burritos have become a New York institution. And yet it wasn’t long ago that it was impossible to find a good burrito of any kind in the city. As the 30th anniversary of the Alameda-Weehawken…
2113
2114
Inheritance was invented as a performance hack
It's well known that inheritance was invented by Simula . The History of Programming Languages session on Simula tells us the motivations behind that invention. Let's take a look.
2115
Finding an Easter Egg in Microsoft Bob
Well, somebody had to find it.
2116
2117
Ed Balls Day
Ed Balls Day is a bit of fun and the stuff of nonsense. It celebrates and remembers the day (28 April 2011) when British politician Ed Balls tweeted his name thinking he was entering it into a sear…
2118
2119
2120
The Tamagotchi Cemetery
In 1996, Japanese toy designers Aki Maita and Yokoi Akihiro debuted the first ever Tamagotchi.
2121
2122
PiDP-11 – Recreating PDP-11/70 with Raspberry Pi
The PiDP-11 is a modern replica of Digital Equipment Corporation’s influential PDP-11 minicomputer. Before, we had a computer on every desk and in every home–and long before they were in every pocket–computers were large, intimidating, and locked in special rooms at universities and corporations. The PDP series paved…
2123
Turning an iPad Pro into a classic Macintosh
I’ve started work on the next in my 1-bit Woodblocks series: “Tekagami” (Ito Shinsui’s “Hand Mirror”). So it’s a good time to talk about how I turned an iPad...
2124
The Many Faces of Berlin U-Bahn Line U7
When the U7 was completed in 1984, it was West Berlin’s longest underground line and the one with the greatest number of stations. Many of those stations, constructed at a time when the western hal…
2125
FTP is 50 years old
FTP was first published the 16th of April 1971
2126
Mac Chimes of Death
We’re all familiar with the Mac’s startup chime. While it has changed over the years, it has greeted users with its friendly tone for decades. What you may not know is that for years, the Mac also came with a death sound, that would play when the machine was unable to properly boot. And they are glorious: Macintosh II…
2127
2128
We Keep Telling the Myth of a Renaissance Golden Age and Bad Middle Ages (2020)
“If the Black Death caused the Renaissance, will COVID also create a golden age?”
2129
The Shape of Rome (2013)
The new Mayor of the city of Rome, Ignazio Marino, just announced his intention to destroy one of the city’s central roads, the Via dei Fori Imperiali, and turn the area around the old Roman Forum into the world’s largest archaeological park. Reactions have ranged from commuters’ groans to declarations from…
2130
Was the NE2000 really that bad?
Over the last few months I have been on and off digging into the history of early PC networking products, especially Ethernet-based ones. In that context, it is impossible to miss the classic NE2000 adapter with all its offshoots and clones. Especially in the Linux community, the NE2000 seems to have had rather bad…