Podcast Episodes

Spam, Email, and Best Intentions

Episode 40

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 …

Published on 5 years, 2 months ago

Learning Along the Oregon Trail

Episode 39

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 firs…

Published on 5 years, 3 months ago

JOVIAL, the Evolution of Programming

Episode 38

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 h…

Published on 5 years, 3 months ago

The Rise of DOS

Episode 37

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: …

Published on 5 years, 4 months ago

The Rise of CP/M

Episode 36

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 f…

Published on 5 years, 4 months ago

Analog Computing and the Automatic Totalisator

Episode 35

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 Tota…

Published on 5 years, 5 months ago

8080 VS Z80

Episode 34

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 sam…

Published on 5 years, 5 months ago

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 a…

Published on 5 years, 5 months ago

Becoming Portable

Episode 33

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 …

Published on 5 years, 6 months ago

Road to Transistors, Part II

Episode 32

In this episode we finish up our look at the birth of the transistor. But to do that we have to go back to 1880, the crystal radio detector, and examine the development of semiconductor devices. Once…

Published on 5 years, 6 months ago