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.
161 episodes transcribedI 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...
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...
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 exami...
The transistor changed the world. It made small, complex, and cheap computing possible. But it wasn't the first attempt to crack the case. There is a...
In the current day Linux is the most widely used UNIX-like operating system. It's rise to prominence has been an amazing success story. From it's humb...
In this byte sized episode I take a look at a pack in that came with the first Macintosh. Along side Apple stickers, manuals, and the computer itself...
Every day we are inundated with digital audio: phone calls, music, even this podcast. Digitized sound has become so ubiquitous that it often fades int...
It's easy to think of Apple and Microsoft as bitter rivals, but that's not always the case. The two companies have a very complicated relationship, an...
The 1980s were a turbulent and fast-moving decade for the video game industry. There were huge success stories, rapid advancements in technology, and...
The widespread use of the internet has shaped our world, it's hard do imagine the modern day without it. One of the biggest featured would have to be...
The floppy disk is one of the most iconic pieces of technology. While not in use in the modern day there was a period of 40 years where the floppy dis...
The floppy disk was a ubiquitous technology for nearly 40 years. From mainframes to home computers, the plastic disk was everywhere. And in the decade...
Our modern world is full of software, it's what makes everything tick. The sheer amount of code that goes into something like keeping the internet run...
Many video games today make use of randomized content, some more than others. It may seem like an obvious feature, but it turns out that procedural ge...
It's time to continue our deep dive into the legacy of Intel's processors. This episode we will be looking at the 8008, the second microprocessor prod...
In this mini episode we will look at the Y2K bug, and some of the recipes it spawned. That's right, we are talking about Y2K cookbooks! You can find a...
In the conclusion to our discussion of PLATO we look at the final incarnation of the system: PLATO IV. How did an educational machine turn into one of...
In the 1960s a small project started at the University of Illinois. This project, called PLATO, would go on to pioneer a truly impressive amount of n...
The computer mouse is a ubiquitous device, it's also one of the least changed devices we use with a computer. The mice we use today have only seen sma...
In this mini-episode we look at a strange event in Microsoft's early history and their first case of piracy. Along the way you will learn about the be...
