Podcast Episodes

Numeric Control and Digital Westerns

Episode 49

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 …

Published on 4 years, 10 months ago

Electric Ping-Pong

Episode 48

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 thin…

Published on 4 years, 11 months ago

Lars Brinkhoff Interview, Preserving ITS

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…

Published on 4 years, 11 months ago

ITS: Open Computing

Episode 47

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…

Published on 4 years, 11 months ago

Hacker Folklore

Episode 46

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 ma…

Published on 5 years ago

Keeping Things BASIC

Episode 45

BASIC is a strange language. During the early days of home computing it was everywhere you looked, pretty much every microcomputer in the 70s and early 80s ran BASIC. For a time it filled a niche alm…

Published on 5 years ago

ENIAC, Part II

Episode 44

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 clos…

Published on 5 years, 1 month ago

ENIAC, Part I

Episode 43

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 …

Published on 5 years, 1 month ago

IBM Gets Personal

Episode 42

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 th…

Published on 5 years, 1 month ago

Return of Viruses: The Spread

Episode 41

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 m…

Published on 5 years, 2 months ago