The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 359 posts.
Bret Devereaux (A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry)2025100 points44 commentsHistory & Retro Computing details
This week, we’re doing another ‘silly’ topic, but this being me, it is a silly logistics topic, because – as the saying goes – amateurs talk tactics, professionals tal…
[This post is part of “A Bicycle for the Mind.” The complete series can be found here.] From 1975 through early 1977, the use of personal computers remained almost exclusively the province of …
The scaffolding surrounding the Charing Cross railway bridge has received an addition – two bales of hay/straw – because an ancient law requires it.
Because Nvidia became one of the most valuable companies in the world, there are now two books explaining its rise and extolling the geniu...
ABOUT ME My name is Helmut and I was born in 1980 in Graz (Austria). Trains were my hobby since childhood. My 2nd hobby is travelling. Du...
The greatest early photographer's portraits of Hugo, Manet, Dumas, and more
If you look for information about the Macintosh Plus and its ROM, you’ll usually find that the ROM has a capacity of 128 KB and that it exists in three revisions . But that’s incorrect: there’s a fourth ROM, 256 KB in size, which includes fonts for kanji (Japanese characters). And I found (and preserved) this ROM. I’m…
E-COM was a $40 million US Postal Service project to deliver email on paper. Why it failed, and why spammers were its only real customers.
Or, how MBA culture killed Bell Labs
Idling at a Zenith
This footage has gone viral online with the claim that it shows an 3 year old chimney sweep on the job: Millions of people saw the footage, shared it online an were upset by it, as they should be&#…
Among the most impressive manufacturing achievements of the US during WWII was the number of ships it produced.
The one email I ever got from Steve Jobs, and it said …
When I was a little kid whenever we drove by mosques, I would be intrigued by the complex motifs they’re decorated by. I always tried to figure out the pattern; to me it was just a pattern, I never…
I have a Tektronix TDS 684B oscilloscope that I bought cheaply at an auction. It has 4 channels, 1 GHz of BW and a sample rate of 5 Gsps. Those are respectable numbers even by today’s standards. It’s also the main reason why I have it: compared to modern oscilloscopes, the other features aren’t nearly as impressive…
Of all the original games Atari put out for the VCS, Adventure may be the one that most people are familiar with today.
Oberon, the jewel by Niklaus Wirth and Jürg Gutknecht: Operating System, Compiler and Computer.
Bret Devereaux (A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry)2025513 points318 commentsHistory & Retro Computing details
This week we’re looking at a specific visual motif common in TV and film: the arrow volley. You know the scene: the general readies his archers, he orders them to ‘draw!’ and then…
That soon-to-reenter Cosmos 482 is getting increased attention by satellite trackers – and new imagery provides some interesting details.
Matt Ström-Awn · Designer, leader, and coach focused on building exceptional products and teams.
You might think that Apple, Commodore or perhaps Radio Shack made the first personal computer, but you’d be wrong.
Most people living in the United States know little about the International Workers' Day of May Day. For many others there is an assumption that it is a holiday celebrated in state communist countries like Cuba or the former Soviet Union. Most Americans don't realize that May Day has its origins here in this country…
Girl with a Pearl Earring
40 years ago today: I joined a tiny startup called Sun Microsystems. What a ride! Here’s the never-before-told story of how I arrived at Sun as employee #8! 🧵 I started out in Silicon Valley …
It's waiting for Godot and eventually gives up.
