Advent of Computing

It's Spook Month on Advent of Computing! Every October we cover the more spooky, scary, and frustrating side of computers. To kick off this year we are looking at viruses again, this time with a speci...

3 Okt 20211h 2min

In today's episode we take a long hard look at the telegraph, and try to see how character encoding developed. We are dealing with 100% pre-computing technology, but there are some shocking similariti...

19 Sep 202156min

Today we are talking about computers in space! 1964 saw the launch of Gemini I, the first spacecraft to carry an onboard computer. The aptly named Gemini Guidance Computer was responsible for guidance...

5 Sep 20211h 2min

This concludes my series on the distinctive shape of early home computers. In this episode we finally cover the Sol-20 itself, the first system on the market to be shaped like a wedge. More generally,...

22 Aug 202156min

Early home microcomputers have a very distinctive shape to them. From the Apple II and the ZX Spectrum, to the Commodore 64 and the Amiga, wedged were the order of the day. I've always wondered why th...

8 Aug 202158min

Hypertext has really become a core offering of daily life, and defined the face of the Internet for decades. But the links and formatting we know so well only make up part of the story. Today we are l...

25 Jul 20211h 1min

It's here! My celebratory question and answer episode! Contains ramblings on my checkered past, why computer history is important, and why FOIA is so cool.

18 Jul 202152min

COBOL! Just its name can strike terror in the hearts of programmers. This language is old, it follows its own strange syntax, and somehow still runs the world of finance and government. But is COBOL r...

11 Jul 20211h 8min