961
Lisping at JPL Revisited
It has been over 20 years since I wrote " Lisping at JPL ", half memoir and half geeky screed (and all of it half-baked) about how an obscur...
Top posts
Every blog post that took off on Hacker News, ranked by the votes of its best submission. 3,229 posts.
History & Retro Computing
Any year
962
How we crowdfunded $750k for a giant book about keyboard history
At first sight, the idea of 1,216-page two-volume work on keyboards for $150 might seem like a heavy lift. But it was years in the making.
963
Oh, My Hand: Complaints Medieval Monks Scribbled in the Margins of Manuscripts
“Writing is excessive drudgery. It crooks your back, it dims your sight, it twists your stomach and your sides.”
964
Stapler: I remade a 32 year old classic Macintosh app
The latest version of this app is now available as a free download on the Mac App Store.More info on my apps website at: gingerbeardman.com/apps/stapler/
965
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 …
966
Steve Jobs: 1955–2011
I didn’t know Steve. I never met him. I never worked for him. I never even got one of his famous one-liner email responses.
967
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…
968
Don't you mean extinct?
In 1993, Jurassic Park came out and revolutionized the use of CGI in films [1] . To the public the experience was magic. But for some of the people in the movie industry, it was a rude awakening.
969
970
BSD on Windows: Things I wish I knew existed
It’s 1995 and I’ve been nearly two years in the professional workspace. OS/2 is the dominant workstation product, Netware servers rule the world, and the year of the Linux desktop is going to happen any moment now. If you weren’t running OS/2, you were probably running Windows 3.1, only very few people were using that…
971
The Galaga no-fire-cheat mystery (2012)
My personal website and blog
972
Why V7 Unix matters so much
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…
973
Thousands of Hip Hop Mix Tapes, Why Not
For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been uploading thousands of Hip-hop Mixtapes into the archive. The resulting collection still has a way to go before it’s everything I have acquired a…
974
The Hearts of the Super Nintendo
When I start studying a vintage system, the first thing I like to do is understand how its components work together at the hardware level [1] .
975
Iron, How Did They Make It, Part IVa: Steel Yourself
Bret Devereaux (A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry)2020218 points30 commentsHistory & Retro Computing details
This week, we continue our four(and a half)-part (I, II, III, IVa, IVb, addendum) look at pre-modern iron and steel production. Last week, we looked at how a blacksmith reshapes our iron from a spo…
976
IBM's Lost Decade
TL;DR: Down and to the right I wasn’t going to do this post until I learned IBM PR is out browbeating reporters (one of the rare activities where the company is still world class) for being “too ha…
977
A look at the die of the 8086 processor
The Intel 8086 microprocessor was introduced 42 years ago this month, 1 so I made some high-res die photos of the chip to celebrate. The ...
978
979
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…
980
Was there PTSD in the ancient or medieval world?
Bret Devereaux (A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry)2020216 points205 commentsHistory & Retro Computing details
Hey folks! Fireside this week, but next week, to celebrate the one-year anniversary of the blog (the first post went up May 3rd) we’re diving into a look at Helm’s Deep in both the book…
981
What made the 1960s CDC6600 supercomputer fast?
Anybody who has ever taken an advanced computer architecture class has heard of the CDC6600, which was the world’s fastest computer from 1964 to 1969. It was the machine that put Seymour Cray…
982
983
Logistics, How Did They Do It, Part III: On the Move
Bret Devereaux (A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry)2022216 points39 commentsHistory & Retro Computing details
This is the third part of a three part (I, II, III) look at some of the practical concerns of managing pre-industrial logistics. In our last post, we outlined what ‘foraging’ actually e…
984
The Disappearance of the Ashtray
These things used to be pieces of furniture
985
The Mao-Kissinger Meeting of 1973
The archives of declassified foreign relations documents from the United States, China and other countries can give us some insights. I’ve enjoyed reading some of the documents in Wilson Cent…
986
The HP-35: Consumer Electronics, an Origin Story
Ault and Wiborg’s art nouveau poster ads.
987
The computer revolution hasn’t happened yet (1997)
In this video, Alan Kay talks about his vision of object oriented programming and how to design scalable systems.
988
Star Trek as a purely symbolic artifact of past times
Back to: I had a blog entry for you, but I eated it | Forward to: Beer, Boston (and books)
989
990
Memorandum on Microsoft’s strategy against Linux and Open Source software (1998)
In the last week of October 1998, a confidential Microsoft memorandum on Redmond's strategy against Linux and Open Source software was leaked to me by a source who shall remain nameless. I annotated this memorandum with explanation and commentary over Halloween Weekend and released it to the national press. Microsoft…