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A brief, incomplete, and mostly wrong history of robotics
(An homage to one of my favorite pieces on the internet: A Brief, Incomplete, and Mostly Wrong History of Programming Languages)
Topics /
History & Retro Computing
The most popular blog posts about history & retro computing on Hacker News. 287 posts.
212
Why I'm Learning Sumerian
After burning out on a massive project, I started learning Sumerian, a language no one’s spoken in 4,000 years. What began as a useless obsession turned into a lesson on meaning, burnout, and the quiet joy of doing hard things that don’t need to matter.
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What were the earliest laws like?
Hammurabi’s code doesn’t tell the whole story
214
Airbrush art of the 80s (2015)
The 80’s was a decade of many things — excess, greed, and big hair, to name a few — but it was also the heyday for airbrush art. As a teenager in the late 80’s, I desperately wanted an airbrush so I could paint my favorite band logos on the back of my jean jacket, and maybe make some money on the side painting…
215
The Sega Master System
We traditionally divide consoles into “generations”—the earliest devices like the Magnavox Odyssey are the first generation, the Atari 2600 is second, the NES third, the SNES and Genesi…
216
The Color of the Future: A history of blue
A history of blue 🦋
217
Typewriter Plotters (2022)
Did you know there were typewriters that used ball point pens to draw not just text but also graphics? I’ve collected several of these over the years. Read on to discover a world that you didn’t know existed.
218
Dr John C. Clark, a scientist who disarmed atomic bombs twice
One scientist did it twice
219
Fun with Telnet (2024)
Some time ago I came across a cinematic experience ......... @@@@@ @@@@@ ........... ......... @ @ @ @ ........... ......... @@@ @ @ .......... ........ @@ @ @ ......... ........ @@@@@@@ @@@@@ th ....... ...... ----------------------- ...... ..... C E N T U R Y .... .... ----------------------- ... ... @@@@@ @@@@@ @ @…
220
Installing and using HP-UX 9
A few weeks back I got a note on Bluesky, linking me to a website offering a free computer. The owner was in Cambridge, not far from me, and the computer was an HP 9000/300 Series - a Model 340, specifically.
221
Tips for installing Windows 98 in QEMU/UTM
Windows 98 runs surprisingly well in QEMU via UTM SE, but it requires some care in setting it up. It’s a great way to run old 90s Windows and DOS software on your iPad (and Mac too, though you have… Continue reading →
222
Bill Gates's Personal Easter Eggs in 8 Bit BASIC (2008)
If you type “WAIT6502,1″ into a Commodore PET with BASIC V2 (1979), it will show the string “MICROSOFT!” at the top left corner of the screen. Legend has it Bill Gates himself inserted this easter egg “after he had had an argument with Commodore founder Jack Tramiel”, “just in case Commodore ever…
223
The year of peak might and magic
Some passions are lifelong, but many others fade away over the course of a life, to be replaced by others. Not long after Jon Van Caneghem, the founder of New World Computing, sold his company to 3DO , it started to become obvious to everyone who worked for him that the torch he carried for computer games no longer…
224
A technical history of Acorn Computers
These pages contain a fairly brief technical history of Acorn Computers. I have decided to focus on the technology because that is where my interests lie. Only very major non-technical events in Acorn's history have been included. If anyone finds any inaccuracies in the following pages please contact me using the link…
225
How the US built 5k ships in WWII
Among the most impressive manufacturing achievements of the US during WWII was the number of ships it produced.
226
Failure Mechanisms in Democratic Regimes – An Army's Role
The United States was born of a desire to leave behind monarchial government and instead live under a republic. Although the structure of the United States was explicitly crafted to have both …
227
Why Skyscrapers Became Glass Boxes
Everything put into the building that is unnecessary, every cubic foot that is used for purely ornamental purposes beyond that needed to express its use and to make it harmonize with others of its class, is a waste — is, to put it in plain English, perverting someone’s money — George Hill, commercial real estate…
228
When Soviet-made cars roamed Singapore roads
From the seventies to nineties, cars that roamed Singapore roads were largely imported from countries such as Australia (Holden), Czechoslovakia (Skoda), France (Citroen, Peugeot, Renault), Germany…
229
Not a three-year-old chimney sweep (2022)
This footage has gone viral online with the claim that it shows an 3 year old chimney sweep on the job: Millions of people saw the footage, shared it online an were upset by it, as they should be&#…
230
A brief history of Times New Roman
Typography for Lawyers
231
The "35-cent" Commodore 64 softmodem
Rockwell famously used 6502-based cores in modems for many years, but that doesn't mean other 6502s couldn't be used. If only there were a w...
232
Reviving a Dead Audio Format: The Return of ZZM
Long-time readers will know that my first video game love was the text-mode video game slash creation studio ZZT. One feature of this game is the ability to ...
233
The original LZEXE (A.K.A. Kosinski) compressor source code has been released
Last year, I discovered that the Kosinski compression format is actually LZEXE, which was used for compressing DOS executables back in the 90s and the late 80s. Its developer catalogues three versi…
234
Meshtastic 64 – A meshtastic radio for the Commodore 64
For this project I designed and built a meshtastic radio that plugs directly into the Commodore 64. My goal was to release this at the VCF M...
235
100 years of Zermelo's axiom of choice: What was the problem with it? (2006)
Cantor conceived set theory in a sequence of six papers published in the Mathematische Annalen during the five year period 1879–1884. In the fifth of these papers, published in 1883, 1 he stated as a law of thought ( Denkgesetz ) that every set can be well-ordered or, more precisely, that it is always possible to…
236
Lynx Browser: The Land That Time Revived (2022)
"If you don't perceive using the Internet in the 2020s to be a constant fight, you have absolutely no online privacy whatsoever." Lynx br...
237
Inside OS/2 (1987)
A 1987 technical introduction to OS/2, covering its architecture, multitasking capabilities, API, and kernel system services.
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Help My c64 caught on fire
Angelo Pesce's homepage & blog on computers, graphics and other things.
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E-COM: The $40M USPS project to send email on paper
E-COM was a $40 million US Postal Service project to deliver email on paper. Why it failed, and why spammers were its only real customers.
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Microsoft's 1986 IPO
Its market cap hit $777 million and Bill Gates' net worth reached $350 million