Today is the 50th anniversary of the release of what many consider the first commercially successful personal computer, the Altair 8800. h/t @Silicon Underground (Dave F) #history #ComputerHistory #RetroComputing #Altair
Altair 8800 kits went on sale December 19, 1974
RIP Thomas Kurtz, most famous for being the co-developer of the original BASIC programming language at Dartmouth. #ComputerHistory #programming #BasicLang computerhistory.org/blog/in-me…
What a resume!
"Without Ms. Berezin, there would be no Bill Gates, no Steve Jobs, no internet, no word processors, no spreadsheets; nothing that remotely connects business with the 21st century."
via https://mefi.social/@best_of_mltshp/113260972705254265
#TIL #WomenInTech #WomenInTechnology #WomenInSTEM
It didn't occur to me that getting PowerShell off the ground in the era of "CLI's are yesterday's technology" would be a herculean effort. Lots of interesting tidbits in this CoRecursive Podcast interview #programming #ComputerHistory
Navigating Corporate Giants - CoRecursive Podcast
This has to be the best and most comprehensive post I've ever seen on the backstory and history of the early years of Git. #history #programming #ComputerHistory #git
A Git story: Not so fun this time
This is a fascinating look at early prototype/bleed edge UX from Apple's first foray into tablet computing in 1991. It culminated in the limited released and then cancelled Apple PenLite device. Most interesting to me was Alan Kay's suggestion to use Kalman filtering to help make the pen motion feel smoother by denoising and predicting the motion. Turns out they used it on the first trackpads too. I never thought of using a Kalman filter for that sort of application. Maybe they still do. #apple #history #ComputerHistory #math
Apple PenLite: The iPad Before the iPad!
I never knew of all of this early CGI work at NYIT before. It is incredible work for the late-1970s/early-1980s. (h/t @Roger ) #ComputerHistory #CGI #GraphicsArts
This Lost Movie Revolutionized Computer Animation
It's astounding how modern computer idioms we take for granted could be done with NeXTSTEP in 1991. The live video and on-the-fly editing are even more impressive, albeit requiring the $15K model computer. That was impressive performance for that price at the time too though.
#ComputerHistory #RetroComputing #SteveJobs #NeXTComputer
Steve Jobs NeXT Cube with Dimension Board Demo 1991 rerecorded Rob Blessin Black Hole Inc 2024 #1
I am astounded at how advanced a game Elite was on the BBC Micro. This video does a great exploration of the mechanics of it, how it was written, the history around it, and its influences to this day. He also gave a big shout out to others who have thoroughly documented the game as well. #RetroComputing #RetroGaming #ComputerHistory
Elite: "The game that couldn't be written"
Another 3dfx mini-documentary, but this one put out by them at their height in 1997/1998. It's an interesting comparison. Kind of sad knowing that a few years later they will be out of business :( #RetroGaming #ComputerHistory #3dfx
3dfx Interactive (Documentary / Interview)
Watching through the 2.5 hour long 3dfx oral history panel in small slices as I resume work on my Dart implemetation of The Ray Tracer Challenge :) #3dfx #ComputerHistory #RetroGaming #DartLang #Flutter #RayTracerChallenge
3dfx Oral History Panel with Ross Smith, Scott Sellers, Gary Tarolli, and Gordon Campbell
This documentary has me obsessed with The Oregon Trail game and its history. I didn't play it regularly as a kid either. This is well worth the watch #GamingHistorian #history #ComputerHistory #RetroGaming #OregonTrail
The Story of The Oregon Trail
I didn't join the PC world until 1994 when Windows 3.x/DOS 6.x were new. Even from my corner of the computer universe I heard about how "bad" DOS 4.0 was initially. OS/2 Museum does a detailed history of it coinciding with its source release. #ComputerHistory #history #Retrocomputing https://www.os2museum.com/wp/dos/dos-4-0/
Thanks to the Retro-Computing Roundtable Podcast I learned that John Romero, of id Software/Doom fame, co-hosts a podcast interviewing classic game designers/developers. It is very intermittently published but very good. #ComputerHistory #RetroComputing #RetroGaming
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/apple-time-warp/id735180050
My first apps pushing real memory requirements, "hundreds of KB to MB", were on Unix systems. The second was Windows 95. The peculiarities of PC memory issues were just running config tools to get Tie Fighter running. Seeing it spelled out so painfully makes me glad I missed all that. #history #ComputerHistory #programming #RetroComputing
From 0 to 1 MB in DOS
This is by far the most in-depth walk through of the earliest 86-DOS (pre-cursor to PC/MS-DOS) that I've seen. Hardware history walk through, live code walk through porting code from Z-80 CP/M to 8086 86-DOS. Very well done #RetroComputing #ComputerHistory #history #86dos #cpm
Showing how to use the Earliest known copy of 86-DOS, the antecedent to IBM PC-DOS. (MS-DOS)
The Itanium/Itanic history is so deeply indepted to Soviet VLIW supercomputer architectures. Itanium failed but the Moscow Center of SPARC Technologies is still developing new VLIW chips. Fascinating #ComputerHistory #history #hpc
The Itanic Saga
I've been a bit Apple Lisa fan for some time. I even own one. I was a customer of Sun Remarketing back in the day too. It is interesting to see how they got started, the deals they made with Apple, and to learn a lot more about the landfill trashing of them (a la the E.T. Atari Cartridges). If you've never heard of Lisa this goes into the backstory very well too. #ComputerHistory #AppleLisa #apple
Lisa: Steve Jobs’ sabotage and Apple’s secret burial | FULL DOCUMENTARY
