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The decline and fall of the hit instrumental song
Nowadays vocalists control popular music—but that wasn't always true
Topics /
History & Retro Computing
The most popular blog posts about history & retro computing on Hacker News. 422 posts.
392
Passing for Human: Philip K. Dick in Vancouver (2018)
Philip K. Dick arrived in Canada on February 16th, 1972, as guest of honour for the 2nd Vancouver Science Fiction Convention ( VCON-2 ), an all-expenses-paid invitation, jointly sponsored by the science fiction societies of Simon Frazer University and the University of British Columbia. He was 43 years old, the author…
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Hacking with Style: TrueType VT220 Font (2009)
VT220 TrueType font
395
Homebrew Hercules Graphics Card
After viewing our CGA Redux livestream a friendly tinkerer named Arek contacted me if I was interested in a homebrew Hercules Graphics Card PCB that he designed. Naturally I said yes and assembled the card, playing beta tester for his design. It will probably be open sourced eventually, but is not yet available. So…
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A Test Suite for the Intel 8088
In a previous article, I revealed one of the secrets to MartyPC 's accuracy, hardware validation . To summarize, it is a method of using a m...
398
The History of Coffee (2015)
Who discovered coffee trees? Who invented coffee as we enjoy it now? Learn coffee history and its journey across the globe from the 9th century to today.
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The History of VisiCalc (1999-2018)
VisiCalc -- Links to the information from its creators, Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston, on this web site
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Windows NT: Peeking into the Cradle
A review of "Showstopper!" by G. Pascal Zachary and my own reflections
403
History of the PDF
Explore the remarkable history of the PDF. This ubiquitous format, which has shaped the way we share and view documents, has a story as compelling as its widespread use. Discover why the PDF, often criticized yet universally used, continues to be a vital part of our digital world in 2023.
404
Shipping Graphing Calculator
I've been on many projects that get canceled. We're building cool stuff. We're going above and beyond, and we're excited. But the project encounters reality, shifting priorities, or budgeting constraints, and the work never goes anywhere. It always feels tragic, but then I move on. But what if I didn't let a project…
405
The Beatles’ collaborative notes: Three ways to write a song
"Just say whatever comes into your head each time..."
406
Turing awardees republished key methods and ideas without credit
Whose Creators They Failed to Credit
407
The outside investigation of SoftRAM 95 (2021)
It had a plan, but didn't quite execute on it.
408
Inércia 2023
Filipe Cruz (aka psenough) invited me to Inércia 2023, a local Demoscene event organized by the Associação Inércia that took place in the infamous Incrível Almadense. I’ve done my fair share of bouncing ball assembly demos in the 80s and others more recently, but I don’t qualify as a demoscener, not even by the lowest…
409
There should be more cash prizes for solving historical mysteries
On the Herculaneum scroll and the underrated value of historical knowledge
410
RISC on a Chip: David Patterson and Berkeley RISC-I
David Patterson and team at UC Berkeley give RISC its name and make the first RISC microprocessor design.
411
Flowers for Turing
Alan Turing, the pioneering Computer Scientist and World War II codebreaker, has a statue in Sackville Gardens in Manchester. On 23rd June each year, we surround it with flowers in his memory for his birthday.
412
Film Review: BlackBerry
The Greatest business film ever made... in Canada
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Has Apple sounded the last POST?
Power-on self-test routines are widespread in electronics, and one of the oldest features in personal computers. Do Apple silicon Macs run them?
415
Repairing a tiny ribbon cable inside a 28 year old IBM ThinkPad 701c
I'm in the middle of turning two badly treated IBM ThinkPad 701CS machines (the ones with the lovely unfolding keyboard) into a single, wor...
416
Interesting features of John Harrison's sea clocks
I recently got to see John Harrison's sea clocks at the Royal Observatory at Greenwich. I recommend visiting if you get the chance. This post is about some of the interesting things I observed.
417
New RAM card, prototype Mac Portable, demo System 7
I guess this is a review of sorts, so here's the review part: you should buy Tech by Androda's new 7MB Macintosh Portable RAM card . On my D...
418
30 years of Brainfuck
Has nerd sniping gone too far?
419
MacPaint and QuickDraw 1984 source code (2010)
The Apple Macintosh combined brilliant design in hardware and in software. The drawing program MacPaint, which was released with the computer in January of 1984, was an example of that brilliance both in what it did, and in how it was implemented.
420
The IPv6 mess (2002)
Each computer on the Internet has its own public IPv4 address, similar to a phone number: for example, 131.193.178.181. The target of each packet of data is identified by a public IPv4 address.