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Why I Wrote PGP (1999)
"Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it." -Mahatma Gandhi
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
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Unix command line conventions over time
ETA, 2022-05-19: I'm happy this blog post has gathered a fair bit of interest. However, this post is as much effort as I'm prepared to put into the topic. I think it would be a good idea to write an essay, article, or even a book, on how syntax of the Unix command line has varied over the years, and in different…
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"Hacker News" for retro computing and gaming
I noticed over time that I was drawn to the retro computing or gaming posts on Hacker News . So, I've set up a dedicated web site in the sam...
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The strangest computer manual ever written
It's dark and funny and unlike anything else
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Why do we call it “boilerplate code?”
Etymology is fun!
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Where Vim Came From
Tracing the long lineage of software that brought us Vim.
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Gurus of 90s Web Design: Zeldman, Siegel, Nielsen
With the rise of Flash and CSS in 1997, three web design philosophies emerge. David Siegel advocates for 'hacks', Jakob Nielsen keeps it simple, while Jeffrey Zeldman combines flair with usability.
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Working in the software industry, circa 1989
Gather round while I tell a tale of old.
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Reverse-engineering the Yamaha DX7 synthesizer's sound chip from die photos
The Yamaha DX7 digital synthesizer was released in 1983 and became "one of the most important advances in the history of modern popular mu...
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A few interesting modern pixel fonts
A blog about software craft and quality
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More than you wanted to know about how Game Boy cartridges work
I set out a while ago to make a Game Boy cartridge from scratch. This is not a novel goal; bootleg Game Boy cartridges have existed almost as long as the Game Boy itself has, and there are many third-party cartridges now available for purchase , or that have copyleft designs .
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Most(ly dead) Influential Programming Languages
The other day I read 20 most significant programming languages in history, a “preposterous table I just made up.” He certainly got preposterous right: he lists Go as “most significant” but not ALGOL, Smalltalk, or ML. He also leaves off Pascal because it’s “mostly dead”. Preposterous! That defeats the whole point of…
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Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade EGA/VGA Comparison
The original EGA art for Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was done by Mike Ebert , Steve Purcell , and Martin Cameron . It was originally released in July 1989. The VGA version, first released on the japanese FM Towns computer in 1990, adds Jim McLeod and James Dollar to the credits.
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The Era of the Trident Engine
About the rise and fall of Microsoft's take on the web.
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Gary Starkweather died on December 26, 2019
Gary Starkweather passed away on Dec 26, 2019 at the age of 81.
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20 Years Later
Almost exactly twenty years ago I started writing a short article about the problems with string theory. I had been thinking about doing this for quite a while, and the timing of entering the twent…
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A Requiem for Ian Murdock
I first met Ian Murdock gathered around a table at some bar, somewhere, after some conference in the late 1990s. Progeny Linux Systems' founding was soon to be announced, and Ian had invited a group from the Debian BoF along to hear about “something interesting”; the post-BoF meetup was actually a briefing on his…
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Let's stop counting centuries
One-indexing problems in everyday life
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What Did Ada Lovelace’s Program Actually Do?
In 1843, Ada Lovelace published the first nontrivial program. How did it work?
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The Last Message Sent on AIM
In the early 2000s social media sites like Facebook and Twitter weren’t commonplace yet. Even text messages, at ten cents each, were something to be rationed. For many teenagers the primary means of communication outside school was AOL Instant Messenger (AIM). So when it was announced in October that they were…
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Emacs appearances in pop culture
Thank you for the support, this blog post got featured on the front page of Hacker News (YCombinator).
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How I introduced a 27-year-old computer to the web
Reviving an old computer is like restoring a classic car: there’s a thrill from bringing the ancient into the modern world. So it was with my first “real” computer, my Mac Plus, when I decided to bring it forward three decades and introduce it to the modern web.
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Old Soviet Venus descent craft nearing Earth reentry
That soon-to-reenter Cosmos 482 is getting increased attention by satellite trackers – and new imagery provides some interesting details.
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Fukushima
When I visited Chernobyl 7 years ago, I didn’t think that a similar disaster could take place anywhere ever again, and certainly not in Japan.
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The Siege of Gondor, Part I: Professionals Talk Logistics
Bret Devereaux (A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry)2019404 points166 commentscited by 6History & Retro Computing details
(Note: Thanks to the effort of a kind reader, this post is now available in audio format! The playlist for the entire series may be found here.) This is the first part of a six-part (II, III, IV, V…
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Netscape Meteors
I went on a small journey the last couple days to find the original Netscape Navigator “meteors” animation. This one has a special place in my head and heart because it is so clearly connected to my memories of discovering the web as a kid. Here it is in its original 60×60 px glory: