Advent of Computing

The Intel 8086 may be the most important processor ever made. It's descendants are central to modern computing, while retaining an absurd level of backwards compatibility. For such an important chip it had an unexpected beginning. The 8086 was meant...

Saga II was a program developed in 1960 that automatically wrote screenplays for TV westerns. Outwardly it looks like artificial intelligence, but that's not entirely accurate. Saga has much more in common with CNC software than AI. This episode we...

Sometimes an idea is so good it keeps showing up. Electronic ping-pong games are one of those ideas. The game was independently invented at least twice, in 1958 and then in 1966. But, here's the thing, PONG didn't come around until the 70s. What were...

Lars Brinkhoff has been spearheading the effort to keep the incompatible Timesharing System alive. Today we sit down to talk about the overall ITS restoration project, software preservation, and how emulation can help save the past. You can find the...

Modern operating systems adhere to a pretty rigid formula. They all have users with password-protected accounts and secure files. They all have restrictions to keep programs from breaking stuff. That design has been common for a long time, but that...

Hacker hasn't always been used to describe dangerous computer experts will ill intent. More accurately it should be sued to describe those enamored with computers, programming, and trying to push machines to do interesting things. The values, ethics,...

BASIC is a strange language. During the early days of home computing it was everywhere you looked, pretty every microcomputer ran BASIC. For a time it filled a niche almost perfectly, it was a useable language that anyone could learn. That didn't...

In 1946 John Eckert and John Mauchly left the Moore School, patented ENIAC, and founded a company. One of those discussions would have consequences that wouldn't be resolved until 1973. Today we close out our series on ENIAC with a look at the legal...

Completed in 1945, ENIAC was one of the first electronic digital computers. The machine was archaic, but highly influential. But it wasn't a totally new take on computing. Today we are taking a look at the slow birth of ENIAC, how analog computers...

This episode is not about the IBM PC. In 1981 the Personal Computer would change the world. Really, it's hard to talk about home computing without diving into it. But I've always had an issue with the traditional story. The PC didn't come out of left...