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.
168 episodes transcribedMany 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...
In 1086 William the Conqueror commissioned a survey of England that would come to be known as the Domesday Book. 900 years later the BBC would create...
Intel is one of the dominant forces in the computer industry today, they may be most well known for their line of microprocessors. These chips have po...
Colossal Cave Adventure is one of the most influential video games of all time. Originally written for the DEC PDP-10 mainframe in 1975 the game has n...
Computer viruses today pose a very real threat. However, it turns out that their origins are actually very non-threatening. Today, we are going to loo...
Today I am joined by Julien Mailland and Kevon Driscoll, co-authors of Minitel: Welcome to the Internet and proprietors of the Minitel Research Lab(mi...
Today we are dipping back into the deep and complex history of the proto-internet. We are going to be looking at Minitel, a France-Wide-Web that was b...
Today we are going to be traveling back to the late 1970s to take a look at the early days of the home computer. And specifically how Microsoft found...
It really seems like in the last decade video games have gone from a somewhat niche hobby to a widespread part of our culture. Nowadays, there are a m...
In this mini-episode we look at the Jargon File, an early primary source about hacker culture. The most recent version of the file lives here: http://...
In this episode we are going to explore the ARPANET. This is a companion to the last episode, which covered contemporary Soviet attempts to create an...
Often times people assume the US is the homeland of the internet. Funded by the US Department of Defence, the first attempts at a large-scale network...
The Raspberry Pi had been a huge success at its stated goals, and continues to be. But, this isn't the first time a British company would design and d...
Today, I want to share with you the story of the first PC clones and how they cemented the rise of the x86 chipset. Most of this story takes place b...
