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Topics /
History & Retro Computing
The most popular blog posts about history & retro computing on Hacker News. 298 posts.
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Hacker News Parody Thread (2013)
This page is intended to be a humorous parody of Hacker News . It is not in any way affiliated with Hacker News. The page's theme and layout are based on the original site. The usernames (with two exceptions) are intended to be fictitious.
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“Code” 2nd Edition
I am overjoyed to announce that the 2nd edition of my book Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software will be published by Pearson on August 19, 2022. As you can see, the covers of the two editions are nearly identical except that the 2nd edition uses the “dark mode” option:
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The computers used to do 3D animation for Final Fantasy VII in 1996
It's time for a little dive into mid-1990s computer history!
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Lotus 1-2-3 For Linux
It’s an exciting time in the Lotus 1-2-3 enthusiast community – that was a joke, there is no enthusiast community, it’s just me! 😆
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Ken Thompson really did launch his "trusting trust" trojan attack in real life
Ken Thompson's "Trusting Trust" compiler Trojan attack was not just a thought experiment. In fact, Usenet poster Jay Ashworth stated that, from personal communications, Thompson really did launch this attack in real life and successfully compromised the Unix Support Group at Bell Labs. Recently, I've rediscovered this…
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If Looks Could Kill
by Leonard Tramiel At one of the many computer trade shows over the years I had a really funny interaction with Bill Gates. I was doing demo...
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Game Boy Camera Canon EF Lens Mount (2018)
I designed and 3D Printed a Canon EF Mount for my Game Boy Camera.
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Original Pong did not have any code or even a microprocessor
Here is a link to full schematics. Thanks to whoever made this. I just found a few issues with it. The CLK input to the 7474 on page 2 should be HRESET, not CLK. Pin 5 of the 555's on pages 5 and 6 should be connected to the capacitor. Also some of the nodes are inconsistently labeled.
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Kitsault, Canada’s $50M 1980s ghost town
It sounds made up. In the wilderness of British Columbia, a two hour drive from any town with cell reception, sits a ghost town. Not only a ghost town, but a ghost town that was built for $50…
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“Code” 2nd Edition Now Available
In a startling disruption of the space-time continuum — and a violation of the basic maxim of publishing that nothing is ever on time — the publication date of the 2nd edition of my book Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software was bumped up by 12 days. That means that the publication date is today…
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The Commodordion
The Commodordion is an 8-bit accordion primarily made of C64s, floppy disks, and gaffer tape.
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Why no Roman industrial revolution?
This week we are taking a look at the latest winner of the ACOUP Senate poll, which posed the question “Why didn’t the Roman Empire have an industrial revolution?” To answer that,…
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Geniuses of the past were aristocratically tutored
Aristocratic tutoring I: Explaining the decline of genius
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Make Linux look like Windows 95
Blasphemy? Probably! But still pretty awesome!
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Understanding the War in Ukraine
This week, I want to break from our usual format and respond to the fairly unusual global events. I expect a lot of my readers are trying to get a grasp on what is happening right now in Ukraine an…
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Unix command line conventions over time
ETA, 2022-05-19: I'm happy this blog post has gathered a fair bit of interest. However, this post is as much effort as I'm prepared to put into the topic. I think it would be a good idea to write an essay, article, or even a book, on how syntax of the Unix command line has varied over the years, and in different…
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Why do we call it “boilerplate code?”
Etymology is fun!
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Working in the software industry, circa 1989
Gather round while I tell a tale of old.
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Old jokes
That’s what she said, a rabbi resolves a dispute, and six categories in the Philogelos
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Did insurance fire brigades let uninsured buildings burn?
This paper derives from a short, time-bound, review of the literature, which sought to investigate the question “Did Insurance Fire Brigades let uninsured buildings burn?”. The question is set in the context of property fire insurance in London, from 1680. The situation was possibly comparable with other large British…
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A bug fix in the 8086 microprocessor, revealed in the die's silicon
The 8086 microprocessor was a groundbreaking processor introduced by Intel in 1978. It led to the x86 architecture that still dominates de...