New Interfaces article by CBI Senior Research Fellow William Aspray & Union College Prof. Emeritus David Hemmendinger "Using Reference Works to Study the Intellectual and Cultural History of Computing." It reflects on their terrific new book pictured below. #HistoryOfComputing #computers #AI #computerscience #technology #science #history
Interfaces:
cse.umn.edu/cbi/interfaces
L'OKI IF-800 Model 50 de 1983 est fascinant :
un ordinateur conçu comme infrastructure de bureau, avec Kanji natif et approche “système”.
Il montre pourquoi le Japon, malgré sa maîtrise technique, a perdu la bataille des standards mondiaux.
A lire : https://www.silicium.org/index.php/blog-catalogue/divers/oki-if-800-model-50
#RetroComputing #HistoryOfComputing #JapaneseTech #OKI #IF800 #DigitalHistory
En 1986, Compaq sort le Deskpro 386, premier PC 32 bits du marché.
Moment clé : IBM perd le contrôle de l’évolution du PC.
Un vrai tournant pour l’écosystème ouvert.
#RetroComputing #HistoryOfComputing #PC #silicium #retrocomputing
📜 In the 1950s, Dr. Newell and Simon were developing the Logic Theory Machine to simulate human problem-solving. They faced a challenge: tracking an unpredictable number of logical statements. Early machines like ENIAC used fixed-size arrays, where the size had to be predefined.
🤔Want to know how they solved this, given those limitations?
👉 Read the full story here - "Story of The First Linked List" - https://priyabrata-paul-blog.hashnode.dev/story-of-the-first-linked-list
Strictly speaking that's a conflation of two distinct strands of history that were a decade and a half apart.
AT&T #Unix System 5 Release 3 had the system of subdirectories and scriptlets, developed because /etc/rc had exploded into a mess when people came to realize that sysops installed third party softwares. This was superseded by something else, the SAF, in S5R4 in 1988. Unices with AT&T heritage such as #Illumos and #Tribblix have that still today, all these decades later.
Whereas what people erroneously call "System V init" was an init+rc system developed independently, for a different operating system with a separate lineage, cloning the design of the old AT&T Unix S5R3 system of roughly a decade before, by Miguel van Smoorenburg in the early to middle 1990s. *That* is the strand of history that went from Minix on to Linux, and was in some flavours succeeded by Upstart and then by systemd.
#HistoryOfComputing #retrocomputing #Upstart #ServiceAccessFacility
Frances Elizabeth Allen: The Woman Who Made Code Run Fast – and Was Forgotten
#HackerNews #FrancesAllen #Legacy #WomenInTech #CodeOptimization #ComputerScience #HistoryOfComputing
The KIM-1, short for Keyboard Input Monitor, is a small 6502-based single-board computer developed and produced by MOS Technology, Inc. and launched in 1976. It was very successful in that period, due to its low price (thanks to the inexpensive 6502 microprocessor) and easy-access expandability. - Wikipedia
Discovered this very early historic home computer from my morning music "On the Other Ocean the debut studio album by American composer David Behrman,.. Considered a pioneering work of computer music, the album pairs electronics controlled by a KIM-1 computer with live players."
Predictably and wonderfully, we can build one ourselves.
http://www.6502.org/trainers/buildkim/buildkim.htm
#KIM1 #Microprocessor #SingleBoardComputer #HistoryofComputing #DavidBehrman #DIYComputers #6502 #MOSTechnology6502
Call for Applications: ACM History and Archiving Fellowship program, due 28th February 2026
The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) History Committee plans to support up to 5 research projects with awards of up to $4,000 each. Call is at link below.
#historyofcomputing #softwarehistory #aihistory #history
https://history.acm.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/ACM-HC-fellowship-CFP-2026-final.pdf
https://log.pyratebeard.net/entry/20251127-rnd.lit.rec:_the_friendly_orange_glow.html
random.literature.recommendation: the friendly orange glow - this is the incredible story of the PLATO system. a computer platform built for education that spawned many aspects of cyberculture before the internet existed.
#literature #computing #historyofcomputing #plato #cyberculture #rndlitrec
Wonderful article about Tommy Flowers, Post Office engineer, and his crucial role in the history of computing.
#computing #historyofcomputing #bletchleypark
> It's really stunning that it does not mention the Scheme language
So very, very true.
There are several large pieces of history in this regard that deserve not only to be published, but to be studied well.
Just a properly written history of closures in computer programming would be worth its weight in gold.
Even a short history.
#Algol
#BlockStructure
#CallByName
#Closures
#HistoryOfComputing
#Lisp
#Scheme
New short piece on magnetic tape libraries — a lesser-known yet vital infrastructure of the mainframe computing era.
Used in everything from census bureaus to medical data and scientific labs, these physical repositories shaped how data was stored, accessed, and processed for decades.
👋 Hello Mastodon! I’m Anne-Laure, a tech writer & digital historian-in-progress.
On my blog Ones & Zeroes, I dive into forgotten stories of computing—tape libraries, women as "computers", early networks, and more.
📚 ones-and-zeroes.ghost.io
#HistoryOfComputing #TechHistory #DigitalLabor #Archives
IMO Aspen Movie Map (1981) has still better concepts than google maps & #streetview today.
left video via: https://mprove.de/chrono3d?q=39.19068,-106.81934&z=17.13&r=98&t=69&d=0&s=1&i=1
right: https://www.google.com/maps/place/39%C2%B011'27.1%22N+106%C2%B049'12.3%22W/@39.1909152,-106.8200994,3a,60y,94.01h,95.62t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s5FFPJFs9kWvdhGgmUUmiuQ!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fcb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26pitch%3D-5.617753428994192%26panoid%3D5FFPJFs9kWvdhGgmUUmiuQ%26yaw%3D94.00903749570698!7i16384!8i8192!4m4!3m3!8m2!3d39.19086!4d-106.82008?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDUxMy4xIKXMDSoJLDEwMjExNDUzSAFQAw%3D%3D
Notation as a Tool of Thought (1979)
https://www.jsoftware.com/papers/tot.htm
#HackerNews #Notation #as #a #Tool #of #Thought #1979 #Notation #CognitiveTools #HackerNews #Programming #HistoryOfComputing
@tommi @zelf Hip Hip Hurray! That’s what I call a good start.
/cf. ARPAnet 1972 https://mprove.de/chrono3d?q=36.94478,-100.5088&z=4.02&t=12&m=LA21198zz002dmvjg-6&o=0.8&s=1
#HistoryOfComputing äHisotryOfHypertext
@RanaldClouston ⬆️ a great story of history of women in computing. #historyOfComputing #Latvia’n migrant to Australia
CBI for Computing, Information and Culture's Tomash Dissertation Fellowship application deadline (ABD req.) January 15th. This competitive fellowship supports a PhD student doing a dissertation focused on the history of computing, software or networking.
#historyofcomputing #historyofsoftware
@histodons
https://cse.umn.edu/cbi/adelle-and-erwin-tomash-fellowship-history-information-technology
Some "Polish-made microcomputers"
'80
#PolishMicrocomputers #RetroComputers #HistoryOfComputing #ComputersOfThePRL #Microcomputers #RetroTechnology #VintageComputers #8085 #U880 #Z80 #6502 #i8086
