Feb 24, 2020
The floppy disk was a ubiquitous technology for nearly 40 years. From mainframes to home computers, the plastic disk was everywhere. And in the decades it was around there were very few changes made to how it fundamentally worked. So how did it get so popular? What made the floppy disk so flexible? And how did it...
Episode 23 Notes - Artifacts of FORTRAN
Feb 12, 2020
In November of 1954 the first preliminary design of FORTRAN was completed. Over the next few years a compiler was built and distributed, various changes were made to the language, and FORTRAN would start down it's path to domination. High level programming languages, starting with FORTRAN, would change what could be...
Feb 10, 2020
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 running is staggering. Programming isn't the easiest profession, but there was a time when it was much much harder. It took a huge shift in thinking, and some impressive...
Episode 22 Notes - Playing Rogue Today
Jan 29, 2020
Rogue is, arguably, one of the most influential video game ever written. It was the first game to make significant use of procedurally generated content. And there is a good chance that most people have never played it. Despite it's important and far-reaching legacy Rogue was never a commercial success. However, games...
Jan 26, 2020
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 generation didn't really catch on in video games until the 1980 release of Rogue. The game itself never saw much commercial success, but was wildly popular among UNIX users....
