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Aster shootdown over Sydney in 1955
FOR more than three hours on a fine, calm August morning in 1955, the eyes of Sydney’s suburbia were fixed skyward, anxiously watching the flight of a pilotless Auster aeroplane
Topics /
History & Retro Computing
The most popular blog posts about history & retro computing on Hacker News. 386 posts.
122
The Curse of Monkey Island
Fair Warning: this article contains plot spoilers for Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge and The Curse of Monkey Island . No puzzle spoilers, however…
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Ross Anderson
Ross Anderson unexpectedly passed away Thursday night in, I believe, his home in Cambridge. I can’t remember when I first met Ross. Of course it was before 2008, when we created the Security and Human Behavior workshop. It was well before 2001, when we created the Workshop on Economics and Information Security. (Okay…
124
Setelinleikkaus: When Finns snipped their cash in half to curb inflation
On the last day of 1945, with World War II finally behind it, Finland's government announced a new and very strange policy. All Finns were r...
125
The Later Years of Douglas Adams
If God exists, he must have a sense of humor, for why else would he have strewn so many practical jokes around his creation? Among them is the uncanny phenomenon of the talented writer who absolutely hates to write.
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Was the Internet created to survive a nuclear strike? (2022)
Was the Internet Created for Nuclear War?
127
25 Years of Krita
Halla Rempt Twenty-five years. A quarter century. That's how long we've been working on Krita. Well, what would become Krita. It started out as KImageShop, but that name was nuked by a now long-dead German lawyer. Then it was renamed to Krayon, and that name was also nuked. Then it was renamed to Krita, and that name…
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Donald Bitzer has died
CHM remembers Fellow Don Bitzer, computer pioneer who co-invented the flat-panel plasma display and was called the "father of PLATO.”
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My MEGA65 is finally here
Taking a good look around (both inside and out) of my brand new MEGA65 computer system from Trenz Electronic GmbH.
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Iconography of the X Window System: The Boot Stipple
If you are of a certain vintage, this image is burned indelibly somewhere in your posterior parietal complex: Oh, my old friend. How it’s been a long time. Cultural Significance For the uninitiated, what are we looking at? Could it be the Moiré Error from Doom? Well, no. You are looking at (part of) the boot up screen…
132
How we crowdfunded $750k for a giant book about keyboard history
At first sight, the idea of 1,216-page two-volume work on keyboards for $150 might seem like a heavy lift. But it was years in the making.
133
Stapler: I remade a 32 year old classic Macintosh app
The latest version of this app is now available as a free download on the Mac App Store.More info on my apps website at: gingerbeardman.com/apps/stapler/
134
The Hearts of the Super Nintendo
When I start studying a vintage system, the first thing I like to do is understand how its components work together at the hardware level [1] .
135
Getting back into C programming for CP/M
This article is about how programming for CP/M, usng a 40-year-old C compiler, differs from modern C development, even for console applications.
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Reverse-engineering a three-axis attitude indicator from the F-4 fighter plane
We recently received an attitude indicator for the F-4 fighter plane, an instrument that uses a rotating ball to show the aircraft's orienta...
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My favorite 1980's Canadian TV show: Bits and Bytes
Reflections on whatever I'm thinking about that week (the web, culture, computer graphics, math etc)
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Some memories of Niklaus Wirth
January 2024
140
Tweaking Stunt Island's 30-year-old 3D engine
Note: the patch is available at the end of the article ( HERE ). This post is about its making-of.
141
The Apple IIGS Megahertz Myth
I love the Apple IIGS. It’s a great computer, but could it have been greater? The legend goes that Apple purposefully underclocked its CPU during development to avoid competing with the Macintosh. But is this actually true? Join me for a deep dive into the IIGS architecture, the life the 65816 CPU,
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The Berkeley Software Distribution
UNIX is always litigious
143
Floating megabomb heaves to near the English coast
The MV Ruby, a ship carrying a highly explosive Russian cargo, is damaged and looking for a port. The threat is clear.
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IBM 360’s are searching for a new home
Hello! If you’re still here reading this blog, I’m impressed. We haven’t posted anything of note for some years now and frankly, thats because we haven’t done anything of note with the project. The machines have been sitting in their home, virtually untouched, for 4 years now. Chris & I (Adam) are just too busy with…
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Lewis Carroll – computing the day of the week for any given date (1887)
A letter from Lewis Carroll to Nature, March 31, 1887: Having hit upon the following method of mentally computing the day of the week for any given date, I send it you in the hope that it may interest some of your readers. I am not a rapid computer myself, and as I find my average time for doing any such question is…
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All I want for Christmas is a negative leap second
I just want to see it. Just once. I want to watch that earthquake ripple through all of global electronic timekeeping. I want to see which organisations make it to January morning with nothing on fire. You know what a leap second is. The short version is that planet Earth ...
148
An Ode to Deluxe Paint (2023)
When first seeing an Amiga 500 computer, it wasn't the games but a copy of the painting program Deluxe Paint II that really got me hooked. Since then, computers and visual art have forever been linked in my mind. Apart from dreaming of an Amiga of my own, my boyhood interest in technical marvels was never about…
149
Reversing Choplifter
The Apple II line of computers had an amazing run, from 1977 to 1993. In that time, hundreds of thousands of pieces of software were written for it, including many tens of thousands of games. Like any platform, however, the number of truly great games within that range is much smaller. If you ask any former (or…
150
I continue to no longer attend vintage computer festivals
As should be expected, a number of individuals have come forward with responses to the initial blog post. While I do not expect everyone to take even a passing interest in the rabbit-hole of the si…