Advent of Computing

It's no secret, I'm a big fan of memory. Not only is memory crucial for the functioning of a computer, it's also plain weird. This episode we are looking at magnetic core memory; a technology that def...

7 Maalis 20221h 9min

This episode we blast off at warp speed! We're looking at Star Trek, a game written in BASIC in 1971. Examining this game gives us some insight into the early spread of BASIC. Along the way we will se...

22 Helmi 20221h 1min

Cybernetics is broadly defined as the study of control and communications, with a special emphasis on feedback-based systems. Put another way: cybernetics is the study of the flow of data. Predating c...

7 Helmi 20221h 7min

This is the conclusion to my exploration of why LISP is the "mother tongue of artificial intelligence". We pick up from the end of last episode and continue to cover the early days of AI. We follow th...

24 Tammi 20221h 9min

I'll let you in on a secret: I've never understood why LISP is so closely associated with artificial intelligence. I've decided to fix this. In this episode, and the next, I'm tracing the early roots ...

10 Tammi 20221h 10min

Viatron's System 21 was the computer of the 1970s! ...At least that's what their marketing claimed. Started in 1967 Viatron was set to be one of the most exciting companies of the coming decade. They ...

27 Joulu 20211h 11min

No matter how you cut it the MOS Technology 6502 is an important chip. The chip was cheap, simple, and plentiful. This made it perfect for the home computing boom of the late 1970s. But how was this c...

13 Joulu 20211h 2min

NLS, or the oN-Line System, is often looked at as a mile marker in the development of modern computing. It was the first system to use a mouse, one of the first functional examples of hypertext, pione...

29 Marras 20211h 5min