271
Sega VR Revived: Emulating an Unreleased Genesis Accessory
We managed to virtualize Sega’s virtual reality headset without ever touching the hardware!
Topics /
History & Retro Computing
The most popular blog posts about history & retro computing on Hacker News. 1,024 posts.
272
Kropotkin escapes from prison
On the occasion of Peter Kropotkin's birthday, we present an account of his escape from prison in Tsarist Russia.
273
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.
274
275
276
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…
277
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 .
278
279
DOS/4GW made Windows 95 game compatibility easier, but with higher stakes
A popular path to protected mode.
280
A Tale of Two Pwnies (Part 1)
Just over two months ago, Chrome sponsored the Pwnium browser hacking competition. We had two fantastic submissions , and successfully bloc...
281
Nokia made too many phones
TextQuery is a desktop app to import data file as a table, query it using SQL.
282
283
284
How Breakfast Became a Thing
Do you think breakfast is the most important meal of the day? Then you fell for an ad campaign designed in 1944 to sell more cereal.
285
KDE at 30
KDE is an open community of friendly people who want to create a world in which everyone has control over their digital life and enjoys freedom and privacy.
286
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2020
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2020 was awarded jointly to Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer A. Doudna "for the development of a method for genome editing"
287
Can I Talk to that William Fellow? He was so Helpful (2009)
Practical development throughout the evolution of Windows.
288
What's the difference between the com and exe extensions? (2008)
Practical development throughout the evolution of Windows.
289
Ghosts in the rom
While digging through dumps generated from the Apple Mac SE ROM images we noticed that there was a large amount of non-code, non-audio data. Adam Mayer tested
290
What, Me Worry? The Art and Humor of Mad Magazine
What, Me Worry? The Art and Humor of MAD Magazine This exhibition explores the unforgettable art and satire of MAD, from its beginnings in 1952 as a popular humor comic book to its emergence as a beloved magazine that spoke truth to power and attracted generations of devoted readers
291
Why are all Windows drivers dated June 21, 2006?
Practical development throughout the evolution of Windows.
292
Loss of nearly a full decade of information from early days of Chinese internet
In a post to China’s popular WeChat platform last week, one writer bemoaned the shocking loss of nearly a full decade of information from the early days of the country’s domestic internet. Within hours the writer's reflections had vanished too.
293
294
Michael Atiyah has died
We are very sorry to hear of the death of Michael Atiyah. Michael was a giant of mathematics. He held many positions including Savilian Professor of Geometry here in Oxford, President of the Royal Society, Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, the founding Directorship of the Isaac Newton Institute and Chancellor of…
295
The Internet Archive and Jason Scott are saving our weird Internet history
Check out our file conversion API – convert 100s of formats with just a few lines of code. In a special series Zamzar take a look at some of the people who have helped shape technology and made it… Read More Jason Scott
296
Egyptian Circumnavigation of Africa ~600 BC
The Greek researcher and storyteller Herodotus of Halicarnassus (fifth century BCE) was the world's first historian. In The Histories , he describes the expansion of the Achaemenid empire under its kings Cyrus the Great , Cambyses and Darius I the Great , culminating in king Xerxes ' expedition in 480 BCE against the…
297
Chromium Blog: A New Crankshaft for V8
Today we are introducing Crankshaft, a new compilation infrastructure for V8, Google Chrome’s JavaScript engine. By using aggressive optimi...
298
299
The 2014 Nobel Prize in Physics
The Nobel Prize in Physics 2014 was awarded jointly to Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano and Shuji Nakamura "for the invention of efficient blue light-emitting diodes which has enabled bright and energy-saving white light sources"
300
Unraveling the linothorax mystery, or how linen armor came to dominate our lives (2013)
Guest post by Alicia Aldrete As the wife, research assistant, and sometimes coauthor of an ancient historian who teaches at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, I had expected to spend many hours…