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Dec 26, 2022

This time we are looking at a somewhat obscure machine: the Canon Cat. Designed by Jef Raskin, the Cat is sometimes called the spiritual successor to the Macintosh. That's a nice little epitaph, but doesn't fully explain the tangled mess of things between Raskin, Jobs, Apple, and the Mac. Today we will try to...


Dec 13, 2022

We've approach the beast itself: SQL. Or, as it used to be known, SEQUEL. In this episode we will discuss how early navigational databases failed, and how we were able to move past them into a relational future. It's a fascinating tale about how careful research and planning can lead to much better tools.

 

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Nov 28, 2022

I've fallen into a bit of a data rabbit hole, and you get to join me. In this episode I'm starting my journey to understand where databases came from, and how they started to evolve. This will serve as a foundation for next episode, when we will dive into one of the most popular databases from the 1970s: SQL. Along...


Nov 14, 2022

So far I've strayed away from hypermedia in my larger hypertext coverage. This episode helps to fix that. Today we are looking at Aspen Movie Map, a project from 1978 that created a virtual Aspen, Colorado. Why would you want to digitize an entire city? Why did DARPA fund a trip to Aspen? And how does this link up...


Oct 30, 2022

Robots have always fascinated and horrified humanity in equal measure. The prospect of a synthetic lifeform is at times exciting, but can quickly turn south. Luckily we've never gotten that far... or have we? This episode we will look at a selection of early robots, from the Mechanical Turk to Elektro. All have...