Advent of Computing

Today we are looking at VisiCalc, the original killer app. Hitting the market in 1979, VisiCalc was the first computer spreadsheet program. Through it's 6 year lifespan it was ported to everything fro...

12 Juni 20221h 7min

The  Standards Eastern Automatic Computer was built by the National Bureau of Standards in 1948. It started crunching numbers in 1950 and stayed in constant operation until... 1964!  This early machin...

29 Maj 20221h 9min

In this episode I talk with Aaron Reed, author of 50 Years of Text Games. We discuss the history of computer games, interactive fiction, business "gaming", and why we all love Adventure. You can find ...

22 Maj 202240min

Multitasking: we all do it. For a feature of modern computing multitasking has surprisingly old roots. It started out as timesharing on vacuum tube based machines, reached ubiquity on large computers,...

15 Maj 20221h

There's power in music, but not all tones are created equal. During the reign of Bell Telephone there was one tone in particular that opened up a world of possibilities: 2600 Hz. The devotees of this ...

1 Maj 20221h 5min

When people talk about early computers Babbage's Analytical Engine is bound to come up. Designed back in the 1830's it's definitely older than any other example of the art. But it also has a lot of st...

17 Apr 20221h 13min

We're getting back to my hypertext series with a big of an obscure tale. ZOG is a hypertext system what was first developed in 1972 at Carnegie-Melon University. It then stagnated until the latter hal...

3 Apr 20221h 11min

Programming doesn't have to be a very serious discipline. In fact, sometimes it's better if it's a little silly. Today we are talking about INTERCAL, the first esoteric programming language. Is it a j...

20 Mars 20221h 5min