Welcome to Advent of Computing, the show that talks about the shocking, intriguing, and all too often relevant history of computing. A lot of little things we take for granted today have rich stories behind their creation, in each episode we will learn how older tech has lead to our modern world.
196 episodes transcribedIn 1947 Raytheon signed a contract to make their first computer. It would be their last... at least for many many years. The fruits of this contract w...
The image of a mainframe is almost always accompanied by it's companion: the magnetic tape drive. For decades magnetic tape served as the medium of ch...
In which we discuss GPSS: the General Purpose Simulation Language. As for as languages go, this is a unique one. It's designed for certain types of si...
The Olivetti Programma 101 isn't quite like any other machine. On first glance it looks like a big desktop calculator. Inside, it's a purebred compute...
Dan Temkin has been a long time friend of the show. I finally got the chance to sit down and talk with him about one of his latest projects. Fort...
Who wants to hear me make incorrect assumptions about old software? RSX is a system that, from the outside, can sound like it has a similar story to t...
UNIX is beloved by many. It's the classic minicomputer operating system. It's big, it's powerful, it's multitasking, and it has some very specific mem...
Today we are talking about one of the most unique languages I've ever come across. SNOBOL emerges from the early days of programming. It's first compi...
We are getting back to the actual digital family tree. In 1937 George Stibitz built a tiny binary adding circuit on his kitchen table using scraps he...
I recently had the chance to talk to Ben Zotto about his upcoming book: Go Computer Now! - The Story of Sphere Computers. It's all about an obscure ma...
I'm back to normal episodes, and I'm running out the gate with a weird one. Thoroughbred/OS was a multi-user and multi-tasking operating system for th...
Last episode I said that Fourth Generation Languages were a topic for another time. Well... this counts as another time. Today we are trying to figure...
In 1945 the first electronic digital computers sparked to life. Number crunching was instantly changed forever! The perfect technology had arri...
In 1981 Joe Dellinger attempted to create the perfect computer program: a virus that spread silently. In 1982 a revision of that virus broke co...
Imagine a secret number that could be used to bring your computer to a screeching halt. In 1977 Gerry Wheeler discovered an interesting feature...
Have you ever had a computer do something you can't explain? Have you ever thought a machine had a mind of its own? In 1971 Met Life was faced...
My trilogy on the PDP-11 concludes with a look at the far flung places this computer can take us. In this episode we look at some issues with c...
This episode we continue my series on the PDP-11 by examining how DEC adapted to the advent of the microprocessor. Along the way we will see ho...
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 fu...
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. Bu...
