52-year-old 9-track tape found with Unix V4, the operating system that everything else came from. Only 20 copies ever existed. University of Utah found theirs in a storage closet, knew what they'd found, and got the help of the California Computer Museum to reconstruct the delicate data.
I really enjoyed reading this article, which treats its readers as capable of understanding, and explains some of the technical background and challenges. Kudos to the author Courtney Tanner for conveying the excitement of this find to the audience.
Warm yourself by the virtual fireplace in this cosy 8-bit #Christmas scene. No MS-DOS or floppy 💾 drive required to stoke this very 1980s hearth. Thanks to software preservation, the flames are still crackling on the Internet Archive.
"[A] small cohort of teenage computer enthusiasts from the Princeton, N.J., area flaunted a clever work-around: They borrowed an acoustic coupler—a forerunner of the computer modem—and connected it to a nearby pay phone. With this hardware in place, the youngsters dialed in to an off-site minicomputer.
The teenagers called themselves the RESISTORS, a retronym (they picked the moniker first and then matched words to the letters) for “Radically Emphatic Students Interested in Science, Technology, Or Research Studies.” The trade publication Computerworld gave the RESISTORS front-page billing—“Students Steal Show as Conference Opens”—and noted how the group drew a “fascinated crowd” of computer professionals. A reporter even suggested that the RESISTORS represented the vanguard of a small-scale social movement as the teens sought to engage with their counterparts from “underprivileged areas of Trenton” and introduce them to personal computing.
In the modern history of computing, a story about a small cohort of teens “playing” with computers might seem tangential. But the previously untold history of the RESISTORS highlights the fact that, years before there were machines called personal computers, some people regularly accessed computers for activities unrelated to their professional lives. Motives varied, but entertainment as well as the display of technical prowess mattered. Just as important, the story of the RESISTORS expands our sense of the hobbyist community beyond later and better-known groups like the Bay Area’s Homebrew Computer Club."
Amazing. A map showing every page of BYTE magazine.
"This zoomable map shows every page of every issue of BYTE starting from the front cover of the first issue (top left) to the last page of final edition (bottom right)."
"Windows 95
Wie Microsoft vor 30 Jahren
den modernen PC erfand" dadrunter steht: "Der Launch von Windows 95 mit einem Marketingbudget von 200 Millionen Dollar wurde zum gesellschaftlichen Highlight.
Die Einführung von Startmenü & Taskleiste machten PCs alltagstauglich und unterhaltsam.
Der Verkauf von 40 Millionen Lizenzen bis Ende 1995 ebnete den Weg für den Erfolg von Windows."
Today 38 years ago a small computer manufacturer in UK launched their new product. The RISC machine became the Acorn Risc Machine and later Advanced Risc Machine -> ARM
It is the most used CPU ever. Intel? Never heard of it...
Vintage advertisement featuring the Atari Stacy 4 portable computer, designed for music production. The computer has a built-in monochrome screen displaying a music sequencing software interface, a full-sized keyboard with a trackball, and hardware controls for volume, brightness, and contrast. The headline reads “This computer was made for music,” and the ad promotes the Atari Stacy™ as a music-focused portable computer. Atari’s logo and contact information are shown at the bottom.
😍 Super Mario Bros 64 😲 Unofficial port of Nintendo's classic on Commodore 64. After several attempts, we loaded it with the help of Arduino Nano and 5 wires thanks to the uno2iec project 💪
🎉 We were honored to host esteemed guests including Dr. Žiga Turk, renowned for his role as a member of Radio Študent's legendary Software Editorial Board. Joining him was Dr. Matevž Kmet, a pharmacist and research leader at ACIES BIO, known for his collaboration with Žiga Turk in creating the widely acclaimed Kontrabant series. 🌟