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Top posts
Every blog post that took off on Hacker News, ranked by the votes of its best submission. 4,253 posts.
History & Retro Computing
Any year
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Yale’s 367-year-old water bond still pays interest (2015)
While most of the Beinecke’s holdings are by their nature dead — their original purpose being fulfilled — the water bond still pays annual interest.
963
Masks, Smoke, and Mirrors: The story of EgyptAir flight 804
In 2016, an EgyptAir A320 spiraled into the Mediterranean, killing 66 people. Was it an act of sabotage, or something even scarier?
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How Equifax Was Breached in 2017
On a Saturday night, a security engineer at Equifax was updating an SSL certificate on a Network Intrusion Detection System (NIDS). Immediately after, suspicious connections were detected. After a more in-depth investigation, it became evident that the situation was far graver than anticipated. A service had to be…
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My teen years: The transputer operating system
History of the evolution of my C compiler and operating system for transputer when I was age 16.
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I have been writing a niche history blog for 15 years
A special appeal to support Res Obscura on its Crystal Anniversary
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Linux Kernel Module written in Scratch (a visual programming language for kids)
Seriously. Someone did this. Because... why not?
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A data table thousands of years old (2020)
I knew that data tables had been around a long time, but I didn't appreciate how long until I read recently about account-keeping in ancient Mesopotamia.
970
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Intel 8080 emulator. 19th IOCCC. Best of Show
An Intel 8080 processor emulator written in less than 4K of C language and able to run CP/M. It won the Best of Show category (first place) of the 19th IOCCC. The 8080 originated the Zilog Z80 and started the personal computer's revolution.
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Die photos and analysis of the revolutionary 8008 microprocessor, 45 years old
Intel's groundbreaking 8008 microprocessor was first produced 45 years ago. 1 This chip, Intel's first 8-bit microprocessor, is the ancesto...
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Soviet Arcade Games from the 70s and 80s
I was thinking recently that here in the West we take our video game history largely for granted. Look back at the Golden Age of video games, and it’s apparent that we had it pretty good R…
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The Development of the C Language (1993)
C came into being in the years 1969-1973, in parallel with the early development of the Unix operating system; the most creative period occurred during 1972. Another spate of changes peaked between 1977 and 1979, when portability of the Unix system was being demonstrated. In the middle of this second period, the first…
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World War II was totally unrealistic
Your life is the best story! Just start your blog today!
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Satoshi Nakamoto is probably Nick Szabo?
I recently became interested in identifying the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto. I started from the Bitcoin whitepaper [0] published in late 2008, and proceeded to run reverse tex…
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The Origin of Emacs in 1976
On the Origin of Emacs in 1976 (Emacs blog articles)
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macOS Icon History
Documenting the evolution of macOS system icons over the past several decades.
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What color was “Apple Beige”?
I went looking for a defining color of the personal computer era. I found it in an old jar of paint.
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Firefox turns 10 years old today (Phoenix v0.1)
Phoenix is a redesign of the Mozilla browser component, similar to Galeon, K-Meleon and Chimera, but written using the XUL user interface language and designed to be cross-platform. More information about Phoenix is available at the Phoenix Project Page .
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Motive.c: The Soul of the Sims (1997)
This is the prototype for the soul of The Sims, which Will Wright wrote on January 23, 1997.
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Satya Nadella uses an IBM AS/400 in 1993
Symbolic of the transfer of power from IBM to Microsoft?
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Childhood Computing
I recently stumbled upon a nice blog post titled Childhood Computing . It made me think about my own childhood computing experience. I am much older than the author of the aforementioned post, but like them, I too love computers. I have for most of my life.
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Demoscene, the secret behind Finnish game industry
This is my story as a game developer. It is also a story of how the Finnish game industry came to be.
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Porting third-party programs to TempleOS
Experienced professional software engineer based in York, UK
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Siri meets Eliza
Jordan Mechner is an author, graphic novelist, screenwriter and video game designer, best known as the creator of Prince of Persia. Follow his latest projects here.
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"No inventions; no innovations" A History of US Steel
Last week, US Steel announced it was being acquired by Japanese steel company Nippon Steel.
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The Rise and Contentious Fork of RSS
An unabridged history of RSS' triumphs and failures.
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Nokia 5110 – Back from the Dead (2022)
I loved my Nokia 5110 and I wonder if it was possible to breathe new life into this long-shelved and still-memed mobile phone. As it turns out, not only is it possible, but it's going to be a lot easier than I anticipated.