In 1973 the world caught it's first glimpse of INTERCAL. It's a wild and wacky language, somewhere between comedy and cutting satire. But the compiler was never circulated. There would be later implementations, but that original compiler remained lost to time. That is, until now. This episode covers how the original source code was found, and my at…

The S1 operating system can do it all! It can run on any computer, read any disk, and execute any software. It can be UNIX compatible, DOS compatible, and so, so much more! But... can S1 ship? Today we are talking about an operating system that sounds too good to be true. Is it another example of vaporware? Or is S1 really the world's most sophisti…

How do you make a computer act less like a computer? It sounds like some kind of riddle, but in the early 1960s it was an actual problem. As IBM customers transitioned from tabulators to computers they ran into all sorts of practical issues. Programmers became a hot commodity. But how do you find a programmer in 1959? And how can you even afford su…

In the early 1960s a neat little machine came out of MIT. Well, kind of MIT. The machine was called LINC. It was small, flexible, and designed to live in laboratories. Some have called it the first personal computer. But, is that true? Does it have some secret that will unseat my beloved LGP-30? And how does DEC fit into the picture?…

The LGP-30 is one of my favorite computers. It's small, scrappy, strange, and wonderous. Among its many wonders are two obscure languages: ACT-I and ACT-III. In this episode we are exploring the ACTS, how the LGP-30 was programmed in practice, and why I've been losing sleep for the last few weeks.

When I was down at VCF SoCal I ran into a strange machine: the Keypact Micro-VIP. It's a terminal without a keyboard, covered in dials, with a speaker and a switch labeled "voice". This chance encounter with the unknown sent me down a wild path. It involved the creeping spread of computing, chicken feed, door to door life insurance salesmen, and at…

A special treat from VCF SoCal. While visiting I had the chance to host a panel on restoration and preservation. I was joined by: David from Usagi Electric (https://www.youtube.com/@UsagiElectric) Rob from Souther Amis (https://www.southernamis.com/) Jim, Former Executive Director Computer Museum of America (https://computerhalloffame.org/home/abou…

Have you ever looked at an old computer and seen a weird typewriter thing tacked on? In most cases that's a device called a Flexowriter. It's half electric typewriter, half teleprinter, half tape reader, and all business! This episode we are chronicling the rise, fall, and weird business dealings of the Flexowriter.…

In the modern day Windows is a power house, but that wasn't always the case. In this episode we are looking at the fraught development of Windows 1.0. During development it was called vaporware, it was panned in the press, roasted at at least one trade show, and even called... "eclectic". Through it all a vision in lime green would take form.…

This episode we are taking a trip back to UNIX world. We're looking at IDRIS, the first clone of UNIX. It was supposed to be highly compatible, but use no code from Bell Labs. IDRIS ran on everything from the Intel 8080 up to the IBM System/370. There was even a version that could run MS-DOS programs. Sound too good to be true? Well, that may be th…

In 1970 a little language called BLISS emerged from Carnegie Mellon University. It was a systems language, meant for operating systems and compilers. It was designed, in part, as a response to Dijkstra's famous Go To Considered Harmful paper. It had no data types. It used the most bizzare form of the pointer I've ever seen. And it was a direct comp…

In 1961 Texas Instruments unveiled the Molecular Electronic Computer, aka: Mol-E-Com. It was a machine that fit in the palm of your hand, but had all the power of a much larger computer. This was in an age of hefty machines, which made the achievement all the more marvelous. How was this even possible? It was all thanks to the wonders of molecular …

The Z4, completed by Konrad Zuse in 1945, is a computer with a wild story. It was made from scrounged parts, survived years of bombing raids, moved all around Berlin, and eventually took refuge in basements and stables. In this episode we will follow the Z4's early days, and look at how it fits into the larger picture of Zuse's work. Along the way …

In 1933 Konrad Zuse, a German civil engineer, caught the computing bug. It would consume the rest of his life. According Zuse he invented the world's first digital computer during WWII, working in near total isolation within the Third Reich. How true is this claim? Today we are looking at Zuse's early machines, the Z1, Z2, and Z3. Selected Sources:…

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Have you ever felt like a computer just refuses to work? Like a machine has a mind of it's own? In 1970 a hard drive at the National Farmers Union Corp. office decided to do just that. That year it started crashing for apparently no reason. It would take 2 years and 56 crashes to sort out the problem. The ultimate solution would leave more question…

This time we are diving back into the Jargon File to take a look at some hacker folklore. Back in the day hackers at MIT spent their time spying on one another's terminals. That is, until some intrepid programmer found a way to fight back. Selected Sources: http://www.catb.org/esr/jargon/html/os-and-jedgar.html - OS and JEDGAR https://github.com/PD…

In 1962 Food Center Wholesale Grocers Inc installed a new IBM 305 RAMAC. That's when things started to go wrong. The faulty machine seemed to have a mind of it's own, and would spread chaos to grocery stores all around Boston. Selected Sources: https://archive.org/details/computerinsecuri0000norm - Computer Insecurity https://bitsavers.computerhist…

Programming, as a practice and study, has been steadily evolving for the past 70 or so years. Over the languages have become more sophisticated and user friendly. New tools have been developed that make programming easier and better. But what was that first step? When exactly did programmers start trying to improve their lot in life? It probably al…

The early history of computer games is messy, weird, and surprising. This episode we are looking at HUTSPIEL, perhaps one of the oldest games ever played on a computer. It's a wargame developed to simulate nuclear conflict... and it's 100% analog. Join us as we find out just what tax dollars were being used for in 1955. Selected Sources: https://ar…

I'm finally back to my usual programming! This time we are taking one of my patent pending rambles through a topics. Today's victim: the humble type-in program. Along the way we will see how traditions formed around early type-in software, and how the practice shifted over time. Was this just a handy way to distribute code? Was this just an educati…

LIVE from VCF West 2024, my talk on edge notched cards! Since this is a live recording from an auditorium the audio is a little boomy, so be warned. Actually, I'm pretty sure this is the same space that CHM uses for some of their oral histories. What I have today is just the audio component. VCF will be posting a full video eventually, which I'll b…

I've gotten busy preparing for VCF West, so this time you get a short one! In this byte-sized episode we are looking at a short and strange story: that time a plane struck a software company, and the company turned around and used the crash in their own ads.

Have you ever formed a bad first impression? Way back when I formed a hasty impression of this language called TRAC. It's been called a proto-esoteric language, and for good reason. It's outlandish, complex, and confounding. But, after the urging of some listeners, I've decided to give TRAC a second look. What I've found is, perhaps, more confusing…

In 1984 SCO released PC XENIX, a port of UNIX that ran on an IBM PC. To understand why that's such a technical feat, and how we even got here, we have to go back to the late 1970s. In this episode we are taking a look at how Microsoft got into the UNIX game, and how they repeatedly struggled to make micro-UNIX work for them. Along the way we run in…