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APL deserves its renaissance too (2018)
APL tutorial explaining the meaning of life←{↑1 ⍵∨.∧3 4=+/,¯1 0 1∘.⊖¯1 0 1∘.⌽⊂⍵}
Topics /
History & Retro Computing
The most popular blog posts about history & retro computing on Hacker News. 390 posts.
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Lisp in Space
Have you ever had a unique approach to a problem and been excited to use it, but you're met with skepticism? Today's story: what happens if you take someone who's passionate about LISP and put them in an organization where that's just not how they write software. Today's story is about getting LISP into space. The…
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I can no longer compile my first Flash game
A tale about game development and techonlogy obsolescence
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The story of the first “computer bug” is a pile of lies
A fun, endearing, delightful pile of lies.
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When Apple Built a Mac OS Running on Top of Solaris and HP-UX
Macintosh Application Environment for Unix -- from back in 1994.
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New technical analysis confirms the evidence against Billy Mitchell
Hot off the heels of the new Billy Mitchell testimony published on Friday, perfectpacman.com is proud to publish a new 48-page technical analysis by hardware engineer and Donkey Kong expert Tanner Fokkens. Fokkens is a moderator and longtime member of Donkey Kong Forum, and co-founder of Snektronix Incorporated…
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First TV Image of Mars: Interplanetary color by numbers (2016)
For the longest time I had seen this framed image entitled “The First TV Image of Mars” in an out of the way place at JPL. I loved taking people there showing them this low res image and how it had been made by coloring numbers that were stapled to a wall. When I got to curate an exhibition about data and art, I had…
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Unidentified PC DOS 1.1 Boot Sector Junk Identified
Anyone trying to disassemble the PC DOS 1.1 boot sector soon notices that at offsets 1A3h through 1BEh there is a byte sequence that just does not belong. It appears to be a fragment of code, but it has no purpose in the boot sector and is never executed. So why is the sequence of junk bytes there, and where did it…
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Frank Rosenblatt's perceptron paved the way for AI 60 years too soon (2019)
As the Faculty of Computing and Information Science celebrates its 20th year, Frank Rosenblatt’s prescient research into artificial intelligence underscores Cornell’s pivotal role in computing history.
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SQLite Doesn't Use Git
Instead, it uses Fossil as a version control system. Some thoughts.
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DOS on Dope (2010)
DOS on DOPE is the modern MVC framework built on the awesome power of Batch scripts .
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The Canon Cat
A software design framework for humans, distilled from Jef Raskin's Humane Interface.
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Qantas ferried an engine on the wing of a 747 (2016)
When Qantas 747 VH-OJU had engine trouble in Johannesburg, VH-OJS came to the rescue ferrying a spare Rolls Royce engine from Sydney to Johannesburg for the stricken plane. We wanted to find out more, so we talked with Qantas about how they go about carrying an extra engine across the ocean. After considering its…
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Using an Amiga in 2021: Making an intro
Every once in a while, someone asks about my interests. I usually just say I'm into home computers from the 1980s and, since most people are very nice and polite, they then ask what I do with them. I usually say something about competing in computer graphics at "digital art festivals," because explaining what the…
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Lua, a Misunderstood Language (2021)
AndreGarzia.com website
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Latin as she is spoke: How classicists tricked themselves (2019)
How Classicists tricked themselves into not learning Latin well.
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On the Origin of the iPhone
As a product, the original iPhone exemplified Apple’s holistic approach to hardware and software that are designed for each other, yet, at the engineering level, the iPhone hardware and software teams were almost completely siloed, with only Jobs and a mere handful of his most trusted (and talented) senior executives…
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Revisiting why hyperlinks are blue
Why we need to revisit the origin of blue hyperlink While musing over my recently published article, Why are hyperlinks blue, I was left feeling a bit blue
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Logistics, How Did They Do It, Part I: The Problem
In this three-part series (I, II, III) we’re going to be bowing to reader demand and taking a close look at the nuts and bolts of maintaining an army in the field. In our last series, after all, w…
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The x86 architecture is the weirdo, part 2
It does everything differently, because of course it does.
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“I survived the TCP transition” (2013)
This year we invited Vint Cerf to tell the story.
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Socialist Romania Computer Chips
The socialist bloc of countries that arose after World War II was not a monolithic entity, it had significant country and cultural differences. A number of countries stood apart, one of them was socialist Romania. The leadership of Romania pursued a relatively free domestic and foreign policy, while remaining within…