Podcast Episodes

The ILLIAC Suite

Episode 87

Can a computer be creative? Can we program a machine to make art? It turns out the answer is yes, and it doesn't even take artificial intelligence. This episode we are diving in to the ILLIAC Suite,…

Published on 3 years, 5 months ago

Fluidic Computing

Episode 86

What is a computer? A miserable pile of electrons!

But... not necessarily. I have yet to find a fully satisfying definition for "computer" that encompasses the full grandeur of calculating machines. …

Published on 3 years, 5 months ago

Visi On, the PC GUI

Episode 85

More Visi-fun ahead! Today we are looking at Visi On, a visionary user interface developed for home computers. Along the way we will discuss smalltalk, portability, and how the slick graphics over a…

Published on 3 years, 6 months ago

VisiCalc, the Killer App

Episode 84

Today we are looking at VisiCalc, the original killer app. Hitting the market in 1979, VisiCalc was the first computer spreadsheet program. Through it's 6 year lifespan it was ported to everything f…

Published on 3 years, 6 months ago

SEAC

Episode 83

The  Standards Eastern Automatic Computer was built by the National Bureau of Standards in 1948. It started crunching numbers in 1950 and stayed in constant operation until... 1964!  This early machi…

Published on 3 years, 7 months ago

Aaron Reed Interview, 50 Years of Text Games

In this episode I talk with Aaron Reed, author of 50 Years of Text Games. We discuss the history of computer games, interactive fiction, business "gaming", and why we all love Adventure.

You can find…

Published on 3 years, 7 months ago

Juggling Jobs with OS-9

Episode 82

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 computer…

Published on 3 years, 7 months ago

A Ballad in 2600 Hertz

Episode 81

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 thi…

Published on 3 years, 7 months ago

The Analytical Engine

Episode 80

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 …

Published on 3 years, 8 months ago

ZOG: Military Strength Hypertext

Episode 79

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 h…

Published on 3 years, 8 months ago