Jun 26, 2022
More
Visi-fun ahead! Today we are looking at Visi On, a visionary user
interface developed for home computers. Along the way we will
discuss smalltalk, portability, and how the slick graphics over at
Xerox were adapted to run on smaller machines.
Selected Sources:
Jun 12, 2022
Today
we are looking at VisiCalc, the original killer app. Hitting the
market in 1979, VisiCalc was the first computer spreadsheet
program. Through it's 6 year lifespan it was ported to everything
from the Apple II to the IBM PC to the Apple III. It dominated the
market and then... it disappeared.
Selected...
May 29, 2022
The Standards Eastern Automatic Computer was built by the National Bureau of Standards in 1948. It started crunching numbers in 1950 and stayed in constant operation until... 1964! This early machine, festooned with vacuum tubes, lived well past the first transistorized computers. So what exactly is SEAC doing so far...
May 22, 2022
In this episode I talk with Aaron Reed, author of 50 Years of Text Games. We discuss the history of computer games, interactive fiction, business "gaming", and why we all love Adventure.
You can find Aaron's work here:
http://aaronareed.net/
May 15, 2022
Multitasking: we all do it. For a feature of modern
computing multitasking has surprisingly old roots. It started out
as timesharing on vacuum tube based machines, reached ubiquity on
large computers, then hit a wall: the microcomputer. Multitasking
didn't smoothly transition over as soon as home computers
hit...
