Episode 92 - Copy Protection
It's Spook Month 2022! To kick things off we are diving into the frustrating depth of copy protection, piracy, and the origins of commercial software. In 1969 the Great Unbundling made the software ma...
2 Okt 20221h 25min
Episode 91 - Whirlwind
Whirlwind represents a fascinating story of transition. The project started in the middle of the 1940s as an analog machine. As times changed it became a digital device. By 1951 it was perhaps the fas...
18 Sep 20221h 23min
Episode 90 - Where Did The S100 Bus Go?
In the last half of the 70s there was one gold standard in home computing: S100. This was a standardized bus that was the heart of many computers. It allowed for the interchange of parts from differen...
4 Sep 20221h 20min
Episode 89 - Forth
What language has two stacks? What language is used on satellites and in home computers? What language deals in words? Why, Forth, of course! Forth is a highly unique language developed in the 60s b...
21 Aug 20221h 16min
Episode 88 - BEFLIX, Early Digital Animation
Digital animation has really become an artform in and of itself. In the current epoch these animations play out on fancy bitmapped displays, but it's origins are far more visceral. Or maybe we should ...
7 Aug 20221h 14min
Episode 87 - The ILLIAC Suite
Can a computer be creative? Can we program a machine to make art? It turns out the answer is yes, and it doesn't even take artificial intelligence. This episode we are diving in to the ILLIAC Suite, a...
24 Juli 20221h 8min
Episode 86 - Fluidic Computing
What is a computer? A miserable pile of electrons! But... not necessarily. I have yet to find a fully satisfying definition for "computer" that encompasses the full grandeur of calculating machines. T...
10 Juli 20221h 15min
Episode 85 - Visi On, the PC GUI
More Visi-fun ahead! Today we are looking at Visi On, a visionary user interface developed for home computers. Along the way we will discuss smalltalk, portability, and how the slick graphics over at ...
26 Juni 20221h 14min
