Podcast Episodes

LGP-30 LIVE! from VCF West

Episode 164

Last weekend I had the chance to talk about the LGP-30 and my emulation project at VCF West in Mountain View, CA. The showrunners will be posting a full video later, but that takes a while to go live…

Published on 21 hours ago

Ever Heard of the PDP-11?

Episode 163

The DEC PDP-11 is one of the most influential minicomputers of all time. Some would even call it the most influential computer of all time. But where exactly did it come from? How was it desi…

Published on 2 weeks ago

CSIRAC, Australia's First Computer

Episode 162

In 1949 CSIRAC sprung to life in a lab in Sydney, Australia. It was a very early stored program computer. All machines of the era were unique. But CSIRAC, well, it was very unique indeed.

Selected So…

Published on 4 weeks ago

The IAS Machine

Episode 161

The first batch of digital computers emerge directly following WWII. The hallmark of this generation is uniqueness: no two computers are the same. However, there is a machine that bucks that trend. T…

Published on 1 month, 3 weeks ago

What can Lunar Lander tell us about FOCAL?

Episode 160

Lunar Lander is one of the best loves video games of all time. The game was created in 1969 as an homage to the recent Apollo 11. From there it would only spread. Just about anything that can print t…

Published on 2 months, 1 week ago

The Intel 286: A Legacy Trap

Episode 159

In 1982 Intel released the iAPX 286. It's was the first heir to the smash-hit 8086. But the 286 was developed before the IBM PC put an Intel chip on every desk. It's design isn't influence by the PC.…

Published on 2 months, 3 weeks ago

INTERCAL RIDES AGAIN - Restoring a Lost Compiler

Episode 158

In 1973 the world caught it's first glimpse of INTERCAL. It's a wild and wacky language, somewhere between comedy and cutting satire. But the compiler was never circulated. There would be later imple…

Published on 3 months ago

Only S1 Users Will Survive!

Episode 157

The S1 operating system can do it all! It can run on any computer, read any disk, and execute any software. It can be UNIX compatible, DOS compatible, and so, so much more! But... can S1 ship? …

Published on 3 months, 3 weeks ago

RPG, a Different Paradigm?

Episode 156

How do you make a computer act less like a computer? It sounds like some kind of riddle, but in the early 1960s it was an actual problem. As IBM customers transitioned from tabulators to computers th…

Published on 4 months, 1 week ago

LINC

Episode 155

In the early 1960s a neat little machine came out of MIT. Well, kind of MIT. The machine was called LINC. It was small, flexible, and designed to live in laboratories. Some have called it the first p…

Published on 4 months, 3 weeks ago