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Topics /
History & Retro Computing
The most popular blog posts about history & retro computing on Hacker News. 287 posts.
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Rollercoaster Tycoon (Or, MicroProse's Last Hurrah)
I think it touches on two of the most fundamental aspects of human nature. We all like doing something constructive, where we can see that we are creating something from virtually nothing, and we all have a desire to nurture or look after things. This is what the game is all about. You spend hours painstakingly…
273
This Old SGI: notes and memoirs on the Silicon Graphics 4D series (1996)
I am posting this assortment of notes and observations as a kind of "thank you" to the numerous people who have replied to my posts in the past. The free flow of information is the life-blood of the internet community, and this is my feeble attempt to maintain that flow, while at the same time repaying the kindness…
274
Upside Down Air Force
The Air Force Research Laboratory / Information Directorate, located at the Rome Research Site (formerly Griffiss Air Force Base), tests electronic countermeasures (ECM) equipment on various airframes for blind spots in the EMC equipment, or for interference by the aircraft's external munitions on the EMC equipment…
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Modern 6502
Mike Kohn's music, software, and electronics projects.
276
Seeing Through the Spartan Mirage
Why does this ancient society capture the modern imagination?
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The Peach meme: On CRTs, pixels and signal quality (again)
Roughly a year ago, I wrote a text about the effects of CRT screens on pixel art . It surprised me by becoming one of the most controversial pieces I've published here. In it, I propose the following:
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Conquest of the Incas
I wrote about the Spanish conquest of the Aztecs five years ago during the early days of this blog. The conquistadors have since remained a fascination of mine, but I haven’t had a chance to go bac…
281
Carmack on Operating Systems (1997)
I have gotten a significant amount of response on the Quake 2 extension mechanism. I do read everything that comes my way (I can't respond to all of it, though), and I have learned a few things from the mail.
282
The Logistics of Road War in the Wasteland
This week, we’re doing another ‘silly’ topic, but this being me, it is a silly logistics topic, because – as the saying goes – amateurs talk tactics, professionals tal…
283
The curious case of the Unix workstation layout
Cathode Ray Dude recently did an excellent video about the history of the PC case, particularly the early- and mid-1990s, and the various mainboard layouts that pre-date the ATX standard. You should watch it. Here it is.
284
Hacking the Yamaha DX9 to Turn It into a DX7 (2023)
A brief account of hacking the Yamaha DX9's firmware ROM to make its functionality more closely match the DX7.
285
The Birth of Chipzilla
Or, the early history of Intel Corporation
286
The Chaos (1922)
This is a classic English poem containing about 800 of the worst irregularities in English spelling and pronunciation. Will Snellen wrote a PDF version using the phonetic alphabet . You can hear some of it pronounced mostly correctly in videos here:
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Debugging Behind the Iron Curtain (2010)
I program my home computer, beam myself into the future