Welcome to Advent of Computing, the show that talks about the shocking, intriguing, and all too often relevant history of computing. A lot of little things we take for granted today have rich stories behind their creation, in each episode we will learn how older tech has lead to our modern world.
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episode 41: Return of Viruses: The Spread
It's time to round out spook month with a return to one of last year's topics: the computer virus. Malicious code traveling over networks is actually a relatively new phenomenon, early viruses were much different. In this episode we examine ANIMAL and...
episode 40: Spam, Email, and Best Intentions
Spam emails are a fact of modern life. Who hasn't been sent annoying and sometimes cryptic messages from unidentified addresses? To understand where spam comes from we need to look at the origins of email itself. Email has had a long and strange...
episode 39: Learning Along the Oregon Trail
We've all played the Oregon Trail, but what do you know about it's origins? First developed as a mainframe program all the way back in 1971, the Oregon Trail was intended as an educational game first and foremost. In fact, it traces its linage to some...
episode 38: JOVIAL, the Evolution of Programming
The creation of FORTRAN and early compilers set the stage to change computing forever. However, they were just the start of a much longer process. Just like a spoken language, programming languages have morphed and changed over time. Today we are...
episode 37: The Rise of DOS
Is there a more iconic duo than the IBM PC and MS-DOS? Microsoft's Disk Operating System would be the final success that turned the company into what we know today. But here's a dirty little secret: DOS didn't start out at Microsoft. So how did Gates...
episode 36: The Rise of CP/M
The IBM PC and MS-DOS, the iconic duo of the early 80s. The two are so interconnected that it's hard to mention one without the other. But in 1980 DOS wasn't IBM's first choice for their soon-to-be flagship hardware. IBM had wanted to license Gary...
episode 35: Analog Computing and the Automatic Totalisator
A lot of the technology we associate with the modern day started on anachronistic machines. I'm not talking about mainframes, I'm talking older. Today we are looking at George Julius's Automatic Totalisator, an analog computer used to manage betting...
episode 34: 8080 VS Z80
In 1974 Intel released the 8080 processor, a chip long in the making. It was the first microprocessor that had the right combination of power and price to make personal computers viable. But that same year a small group of employees defected and...
Brad Chase Interview, Marketing Lead for Windows 95 and Much More
I recently got the chance to sit down and talk with Microsoft alumni Brad Chase. He was the product manager for Microsoft Works on the Macintosh, DOS 5, DOS 6, and the marketing lead for Windows 95 as well as much more. We talk about the...
episode 33: Becoming Portable
Portable computing is now totally ubiquitous. There's a good chance you are listening to this episode on a tiny portable computer right now. But where did it all come from? As it turns out the first portable computer was designed all the way back in...