Advent of Computing

Released in August 1981, the IBM PC is perhaps one of the most important computers in history. It originated the basic architecture computers still use today, it flung the doors open to a thriving clo...

8 Mar 20211h 10min

The Intel 8086 may be the most important processor ever made. It's descendants are central to modern computing, while retaining an absurd level of backwards compatibility. For such an important chip i...

22 Feb 20211h 1min

Saga II was a program developed in 1960 that automatically wrote screenplays for TV westerns. Outwardly it looks like artificial intelligence, but that's not entirely accurate. Saga has much more in c...

8 Feb 202159min

Sometimes an idea is so good it keeps showing up. Electronic ping-pong games are one of those ideas. The game was independently invented at least twice, in 1958 and then in 1966. But, here's the thing...

25 Jan 202157min

Lars Brinkhoff has been spearheading the effort to keep the incompatible Timesharing System alive. Today we sit down to talk about the overall ITS restoration project, software preservation, and how e...

18 Jan 202121min

Modern operating systems adhere to a pretty rigid formula. They all have users with password-protected accounts and secure files. They all have restrictions to keep programs from breaking stuff. That ...

11 Jan 202151min

Hacker hasn't always been used to describe dangerous computer experts will ill intent. More accurately it should be sued to describe those enamored with computers, programming, and trying to push mach...

28 Des 202056min

BASIC is a strange language. During the early days of home computing it was everywhere you looked, pretty much every microcomputer in the 70s and early 80s ran BASIC. For a time it filled a niche almo...

14 Des 202057min