Advent of Computing

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

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 Mars 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 Feb 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 Feb 20221h 7min