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The most popular blog posts about history & retro computing on Hacker News. 92 posts.
[08 Oct 2009] Robotic Submarine Running Debian Wins International Competition [07 Oct 2009] Debian pushes development of kFreeBSD port [23 Sep 2009] First Debian Mini Conference to be held in Taiwan [05 Sep 2009] Debian GNU/Linux 5.0 updated [06 Aug 2009] 2009 Annual International Debian Conference finished…
I woke up from a nap to a loud pop and a smell of burning plastic. The source turned out to be one of the most precious and important to me digital devices: a ReadyNAS NV+, a small silver box with over a terabyte of hard drives that store my backups, music, and photos. Network attached storage (NAS) is an engineering…
As you probably know, in the late 70’s Panic was writing VAX/VMS automation code for the textile industry. Cotton attenuators, zipper sublimation, loom dynamics, that sort of thing. What you might not know is that, once the early 80’s arrived, Panic got hit hard with two things: unkempt mutton chops, and Pac-Man Fever.
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.
This is Part VI of how I came to write “The Secret History of Silicon Valley“. This post makes a lot more sense if you look at the earlier posts as well as the video and slides. ——̵…
Russia's President Medvedev has decreed a new holiday for the country: Президент России Дмитрий Медведев своим указом установил профессиона...
A recent article devoted to the *macho* side of programming made the bald and unvarnished statement:
When I started writing The Geek Atlas there was one name that was getting in the book no matter what: Alan Turing . Alan Turing matters on ...
Will…You…Play…Black Knight Again?? There is a reason I live in Winnetka and not in Evanston. And it’s not because, as Sandeep would put it, I like to get up 30 minutes earl…
C functions may be used recursively; that is, a function may call itself either directly or indirectly. Uninquiring souls may take this as just another peculiarity of those C folk, of whose ways their neighbours speak little to outsiders but much among themselves.
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-…
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...
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…
QRP(Low Power Amateur Radio)
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
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…
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.
Super Phénix: Creys-Malville Nuclear Power Station, River Rhone (Sur le Rhone) Creys-Malville, Isere, France, Centrale Nucleaire Europeen...
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…
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
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
