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Playstation Vita Architecture (Part 1)
An in-depth analysis that explains how this console works internally
Topics /
History & Retro Computing
The most popular blog posts about history & retro computing on Hacker News. 386 posts.
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FireChat was a tool for revolution, then disappeared
With FireChat, people were free to communicate and coordinate with each other without the message having to first filter through someone's data center. Why did the app shut down without notice?
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40 years later, a game for the ZX Spectrum will be again broadcast over FM radio
Anyone who still has a working Spectrum ZX will then be able to test the game.
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The Third Atomic Bomb
After the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the US Army Air Force had plans to drop a third bomb on August 19, 1945—with more to come if necessary. Fat Man bomb casing at the USAF Museum
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The Moral Economy of the Shire
Who paid for this? There’s a certain meme that I see making the rounds on Facebook every so often about the bucolic nature of life in the Shire, from Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord o…
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Jeffrey Snover and the Making of PowerShell
What if you had to fight against your company's culture to bring a revolutionary tool to life? Meet Jeffrey Snover, the Microsoft architect behind PowerShell, a command tool that transformed Windows system administration. Initially met with skepticism, Snover's idea faced resistance from a company that favored…
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Masks, Smoke, and Mirrors: The story of EgyptAir flight 804
In 2016, an EgyptAir A320 spiraled into the Mediterranean, killing 66 people. Was it an act of sabotage, or something even scarier?
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A data table thousands of years old (2020)
I knew that data tables had been around a long time, but I didn't appreciate how long until I read recently about account-keeping in ancient Mesopotamia.
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Intel 8080 emulator. 19th IOCCC. Best of Show
An Intel 8080 processor emulator written in less than 4K of C language and able to run CP/M. It won the Best of Show category (first place) of the 19th IOCCC. The 8080 originated the Zilog Z80 and started the personal computer's revolution.
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The Origin of Emacs in 1976
On the Origin of Emacs in 1976 (Emacs blog articles)
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Satya Nadella uses an IBM AS/400 in 1993
Symbolic of the transfer of power from IBM to Microsoft?
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Nokia 5110 – Back from the Dead (2022)
I loved my Nokia 5110 and I wonder if it was possible to breathe new life into this long-shelved and still-memed mobile phone. As it turns out, not only is it possible, but it's going to be a lot easier than I anticipated.
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Nokia made too many phones
TextQuery is a desktop app to import data file as a table, query it using SQL.
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What, Me Worry? The Art and Humor of Mad Magazine
What, Me Worry? The Art and Humor of MAD Magazine This exhibition explores the unforgettable art and satire of MAD, from its beginnings in 1952 as a popular humor comic book to its emergence as a beloved magazine that spoke truth to power and attracted generations of devoted readers
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Reverse engineering the Sega Channel game image file format
Sega Channel was a games-on-demand service that gave cable subscribers access to a library of around 50 Sega Genesis games per month in exchange for a monthly fee (typically $10-$15/month depending on the cable provider). It operated between June 1994 (with a nationwide rollout in December 1994) and June 1998. Cable…
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Loss of nearly a full decade of information from early days of Chinese internet
In a post to China’s popular WeChat platform last week, one writer bemoaned the shocking loss of nearly a full decade of information from the early days of the country’s domestic internet. Within hours the writer's reflections had vanished too.
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The Early Days of Valve from a Woman Inside
The Untold Story Behind a Meteoric Rise
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Morris Chang and the Origins of TSMC
Book review of the autobiography of Morris Chang.
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Atari's Mike Jang
Some sad news to report on the blog this week. I got word that long-time Industrial Designer at Atari coin-operated division, Mike Jang, has passed away. I’ve known Mike since 2016, and whils…
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I wish I didn't miss the '90s-00s internet
about me I am 18, born in 2006. This is generally a good thing as I am in the prime of life currently. I am not one of those people who think they were “born in the wrong decade”, I think I was born at the perfect time to take advantage of superlinearly growing technological advancements. the internet today I…
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38% of webpages that existed in 2013 are no longer accessible a decade later
A quarter of all webpages that existed at one point between 2013 and 2023 are no longer accessible.
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The Influence of Bell Labs
We’ve talked previously about Bell Labs’ long, storied history as an innovation engine and a generator of new technology.
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Reverse engineering and dismantling Kekz headphones
Close to a year ago, I stumbled upon the Kekz Headphones, which seemed like an interesting approach on the whole digital audio device space. They claimed to work without any internet connection and all of the content already on the headphones itself. They are On-Ear Headphones, which work by placing a small chip (I…
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What happened to the US machine tool industry?
Machine tools – machines that cut or form metal – are the heart of industrial civilization.
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Singapore Airlines Concorde
Sleek, supersonic, and short-lived. Here’s how Singapore Airlines’ Concorde service to London fell victim to politics, nationalistic jealousies, and soaring costs.
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DOS game “F-15 Strike Eagle II” reverse engineering/reconstruction war stories
Misadventures in 16bit reverse engineering, programming WTFs and general rants about the IT industry.
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Infinite Mac: Turning to the dark side
tl;dr: No, not Windows¹, but I’ve decided to expand Infinite Mac to the the black hardware that Mac users secretly lusted after in the 80s and 90s: NeXT. There is now a runnable collection of all notable NeXTStep versions , going from the initial 0.8 preview in 1988 to the final OPENSTEP 4.2 release in 1997.
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Eden Abhez: The strangest hit songwriter
He wrote one of my favorite songs, but was so much more than a composer