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Topics /
History & Retro Computing
The most popular blog posts about history & retro computing on Hacker News. 3,229 posts.
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Blu-Ray Still Blows
Some time ago I wrote an entry that got some attention about the Blu-ray format and why I refuse to release anything on it. It’d be nice to release the text adventure documentary in what Blu-…
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When (if ever) did the Sun set on the British Empire?
It hasn't. Yet. But only because of a few dozen people living in an area smaller than Disney World.
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In which I switch on a 30 year old computer and it just works
Yesterday, I had the pleasure of visiting my parents and getting out an old computer. One of the first computers I used a lot was the Shar...
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Jason Scott: "A terrible thing happened recently. You might have missed it."
A terrible thing happened recently. You might have missed it. AOL Hometown, which itself was actually a combination of a bunch of previously acquired websites, shut down. It shut down on October 31…
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DOS Ain't Done Til Lotus Won't Run? (2005)
If you've listened to the anti-Microsoft crowd, you've probably heard this phrase. A web search returns a wide range of attributions, everything from an alleged battle cry to just short of an official company motto. The rumor being that Microsoft would intentionally break competitors' applications with each release of…
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Top Web Design Styles of 1993
It is difficult to estimate how many web pages created in 1993-1994 made it into the new millenium in their premordial way. If you manage to find something that was put online that time, it would in the best case display a 1995-1996 skin. But there is a way to find pages that live for ever in 1993.
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The story of ispc: origins (part 1) (2018)
This one time, at Intel, I wrote a compiler...
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How To build a radio in a POW camp -- the real life King Rat
QRP(Low Power Amateur Radio)
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Feynman, Challenger Disaster, and Software Engineering
On January 28th, 1986, Space Shuttle Challenger was launched at 11:38am on the 6-day STS-51-L mission. During the first 3 seconds of liftoff the o-rings (o-shaped loops used to connect two cylinders
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About the origins of the equals sign
From the highly eclectic blog of Mark Dominus
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A Life that Added Up to Something: Paul Erdos (1996)
WASHINGTON - One of the most extraordinary minds of our time has "left." "Left" is the word Paul Erdos, a prodigiously gifted and productive mathematician, used for "died." "Died" is the word he used to signify "stopped doing math." Erdos never died. He continued doing math, notoriously a young person's field, right…
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Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal - Letter to the editor, Datamation July 1983
Back in the good old days-- the "Golden Era" of computers-- it was easy to separate the men from the boys (sometimes called "Real Men" and "Quiche Eaters" in the literature). During this period, the Real Men were the ones who understood computer programming, and the Quiche Eaters were the ones who didn't. A real…
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Development Journal for Price of Persia
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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Nuclear Reactor Wall Charts
Super Phénix: Creys-Malville Nuclear Power Station, River Rhone (Sur le Rhone) Creys-Malville, Isere, France, Centrale Nucleaire Europeen...
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Mind Hacks: Breaking the news of Eliza's creator's death to her
Hello, I am Eliza. Hi Eliza. I’m Vaughan. Did you come to me because you are Vaughan? I did. I am sad because I just found out that your creator, the computer scientist Joseph Weizenbaum, has…
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Survival tips if you find yourself in the Middle Ages?
I spend far too much of my life daydreaming about scenarios like this: I wanted to ask for survival tips in case I am unexpectedly transported to a random locat
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"Whatever happened to...?" The odd fates of 25 legendary tech products.
Old computer products, like old soldiers, never die. They stay on the market--even though they haven't been updated in eons. Or their names get slapped on new products--available only outside the U.S. Or obsessive fans refuse to accept that they're obsolete--long after the rest of the world has move
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Email (let's drop the hyphen) (2003)
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.
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The Alameda-Weehawken Burrito Tunnel (2007)
Who can imagine New York City without the Mission burrito? Like the Yankees, the Brooklyn Bridge or the bagel, the oversize burritos have become a New York institution. And yet it wasn’t long ago that it was impossible to find a good burrito of any kind in the city. As the 30th anniversary of the Alameda-Weehawken…
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Greybeard Stories: The Bouncing Torpedo
Sometimes the stories can't even be told. But some, after time, can. I'm starting to write them up, and this is one of them.
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Founders at work: Interview with Steve Wozniak
Interview: Steve Wozniak , Co-Founder, Apple Computer If any one person can be said to have set off the personal computer revolution, it might be Steve Wozniak. He designed the machine that...
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The Making of Prince of Persia
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.