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.
174 episodes transcribedThe Standards Eastern Automatic Computer was built by the National Bureau of Standards in 1948. It started crunching numbers in 1950 and stayed in co...
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 "gam...
Multitasking: we all do it. For a feature of modern computing multitasking has surprisingly old roots. It started out as timesharing on vacuum tube b...
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 wor...
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 ot...
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...
Programming doesn't have to be a very serious discipline. In fact, sometimes it's better if it's a little silly. Today we are talking about INTERCAL,...
It's no secret, I'm a big fan of memory. Not only is memory crucial for the functioning of a computer, it's also plain weird. This episode we are loo...
This episode we blast off at warp speed! We're looking at Star Trek, a game written in BASIC in 1971. Examining this game gives us some insight into...
Cybernetics is broadly defined as the study of control and communications, with a special emphasis on feedback-based systems. Put another way: cybern...
This is the conclusion to my exploration of why LISP is the "mother tongue of artificial intelligence". We pick up from the end of last episode and c...
I'll let you in on a secret: I've never understood why LISP is so closely associated with artificial intelligence. I've decided to fix this. In this...
Viatron's System 21 was the computer of the 1970s! ...At least that's what their marketing claimed. Started in 1967 Viatron was set to be one of the...
No matter how you cut it the MOS Technology 6502 is an important chip. The chip was cheap, simple, and plentiful. This made it perfect for the home c...
NLS, or the oN-Line System, is often looked at as a mile marker in the development of modern computing. It was the first system to use a mouse, one o...
NLS, or the oN-Line System, is often looked at as a mile marker in the development of modern computing. It was the first system to use a mouse, one o...
Make sure you have some extra batteries for your lamp, this episode we are delving into the depths of Zork. Written in 1977 Zork would quickly become...
This episode I face my greatest fears: computer bugs. We are going to dive into the origin of the term, and examine the origins of debugging. The simp...
It's Spook Month on Advent of Computing! Every October we cover the more spooky, scary, and frustrating side of computers. To kick off this year we a...
In today's episode we take a long hard look at the telegraph, and try to see how character encoding developed. We are dealing with 100% pre-computing...
