2191
The origin and unexpected evolution of the word "mainframe"
What is the origin of the word "mainframe", referring to a large, complex computer? Most sources agree that the term is related to the frame...
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
2192
2193
Lovelace's Leap
There's a great deal said about Ada, Countess of Lovelace that I find misguided. And, worse, the real intellectual triumph of Lovelace is ...
2194
Zusie – My Relay Computer
The story behind Zusie begins in May 2008, when I went on vacation to Berlin for a few days with a friend. As is my habit, I looked for interesting technical or scientific sites to visit, and the main thing to visit was the Technische Museum. I think I spent a full day day there, to the expressed dismay of my friend…
2195
The Story of ISPC: Intel SPMD Program Compiler
Collected together all for your convenience.
2196
What's worked in Computer Science: 1999 vs. 2015 (2015)
In 1999, Butler Lampson gave a talk about the past and future of “computer systems research” . Here are his opinions from 1999 on "what worked".
2197
2198
How London cracked mobile phone coverage on the Underground
Dotted around London, there are a number of private hotels that aren’t the sort of hotel you might expect – they’re needed to make mobile phones work on the London Underground.
2199
The 3D Software Rendering Technology of 1998's Thief: The Dark Project (2019)
In 1998 Looking Glass Studios released the stealth game Thief: The Dark Project . This was just as 3D hardware acceleration was taking off, so due to the development cycle it didn't use hardware acceleration; it was a purely software-rendered game.
2200
The GitHub Arctic Code Vault
Our mission is to preserve open source software for future generations by storing your code in an archive built to last a thousand years.
2201
What can be learned from studying long gone development practices?
Current ideas about the best way of building a software system are heavily influenced by the ideas that captured the attention of previous generations of developers. Can anything of practical use be learned from studying long gone techniques for building software systems?
2202
The Miracle of Wörgl
When entertaining the idea of communities issuing their own money (called complementary currencies ), people often wonder if that idea has been successfully done before. In doing our research into the concept, we encountered a number of stories where communities issued their own currency and produced a prosperity…
2203
Gravitational wave researchers cast new light on Antikythera mechanism mystery
Techniques developed to analyse the ripples in spacetime detected by one of the 21st century’s most sensitive pieces of scientific equipment have helped cast new light on the function of the oldest known analogue computer.
2204
The Soul of an Old Machine: Revisiting the Timeless von Neumann Architecture
Revisiting the timeless von Neumann Architecture
2205
TI-83 Plus One More
Repair of a TI-83 Plus calculator with a non-working screen
2206
What doomed MakerBot? The Osborne effect
On April 17, MakerBot laid off 20% of its staff . That's a big deal to me as I've been wondering what happened to the MakerBot I used to admire . Years ago, I looked up to the MakerBot team as a role model of how to run an open hardware company. Bre Pettis, MakerBot co-founder and former CEO, had given many talks and…
2207
Blacksmithing and Lisp
A blog about computers, functional languages, Lisp, and Scheme.
2208
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...
2209
Aaron Swartz "JSTOR" case indictment revised/expanded
I'm continuing to follow the Aaron Swartz case , which is grinding away (disclosure: I know him socially, and have admired his work). The latest development, which seems to have not been reported anywhere but here (scoop! :-) breaking story! :-)), is that the prosecution has issued a "Superseding Indictment" . That…
2210
2211
Douglas Adams on Hypercard and new educational models
Douglas Adams on Hypercard + New Educational Models
2212
The Linux Backdoor Attempt of 2003
Josh wrote recently about a serious security bug that appeared in Debian Linux back in 2006, and whether it was really a backdoor inserted by the NSA. (He concluded that it probably was not.) Today I want to write about another incident, in 2003, in which someone tried to backdoor the Linux kernel. This one […]
2213
Knuth Airgaps and Knuth Buffers
Knuth knows how to maintain information hygeine.
2214
Building Photoshop 1.0
On February 13, 2013, the Computer History Museum reported that they had received the source code for version 1.1 of Photoshop from Adobe, and had permission to release it for non-commercial use. This is the second time recently that something like this has happened, the first being the release of the Quickdraw and…
2215
2216
How Thomas Jefferson prepared for meetings
Here's an interesting historical anecdote from Karl Fogel's Producing Open Source Software on the value of preparing for meetings. In his multi-volume biography of Thomas Jefferson, Jefferson and His Time, Dumas Malone tells the story of how Jefferson handled the first meeting held to decide the organization of the…
2217
The Rise and Fall of the Manufactured Home – Part I
A recurring theme of this newsletter is the failure of prefabrication (building homes in factories instead of on-site) to revolutionize the housing industry.
2218
Is stuff online worth saving?
I’ll admit, the question took me back a bit. But I’d say yes, it is.
2219
2220
Knuth versus Email (1999)
I have been a happy man ever since January 1, 1990, when I no longer had an email address. I'd used email since about 1975, and it seems to me that 15 years of email is plenty for one lifetime.