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Advent of Computing

Welcome to Advent of Computing, the show that talks about the shocking, intriguing, and all too often relevant history of computing. A lot of little things we take for granted today have rich stories behind their creation, in each episode we will learn how older tech has lead to our modern world.

history

All Episodes

57:35

Episode 123 - The Jupiter Ace

Advent of Computing ·

2024/01/01

Released in 1982, the Jupiter Ace is a fascinating little computer. It's hardware isn't much to write home about. It's just an 8-bit microcomputer very much in line with other systems of the era. Where it shines is it's software. In a period when most home computer ran some version of BASIC the Ace was using Forth. On the surface that might sound like a trivial difference, but that one deviation from the norm made all the difference in the world. Selected Sources:

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59:08

Episode 122 - To Edit Text

Advent of Computing ·

2023/12/18

Tools are the most important programs in the world. Without quality tools it's impossible to write quality software. One of those most important of those tools, and the most hotly coveted, is the text editor. These programs offer us a window into the digital world. It's no wonder that programmers the world over basically live inside text editors. In this episode will discuss when exactly that digital window was opened. When did text editors first appear? What forms did they take? Selected

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01:04:13

Episode 121 - Arguments Against Programming

Advent of Computing ·

2023/12/04

Most accounts of the early history of programming languages all share something in common. They all have a sentence or two explaining how there was great resistance to these new languages, but eventually all programmers were won over. Progress was made, despite the forces of counterrevolutionaries. What you won't find in most histories are the actual arguments these counterrevolutionaries made. This episode we are looking at those arguments. I've tracked down a handful of papers that argue

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01:03:08

Episode 120 - Simply COSMAC

Advent of Computing ·

2023/11/13

Have you ever opined for a simpler time? Have you ever wanted a computer that you can understand all the way down to the silicon? Then RCA's COSMAC might be the architecture for you! COSMAC was a simplified computer architecture designed in the early 70s. It's tiny, cheap, and built to be easy to understand. But is the chip actually useful? Selected Sources: https://archive.org/details/manualzilla-id-5721710/page/26/mode/1up?view=theater - All the ELF articles in one place!

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01:00:28

Episode 119 - The Batch!

Advent of Computing ·

2023/10/29

This episode we are looking at a ghost of bygone days: batch processing! Before fancy terminals peppered computer rooms, before there was a microcomputer on every desk, there was the batch. In this non-interactive form of computing a user could wait hours, days, or even weeks to get a chance at computer time. Machines were kept well away from programmers, guarded by digital clerics. Why did such an arrangement exist? And did it ultimately help the programmer? Selected Sources:

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01:15:35

Episode 118 - Viral Dark Ages

Advent of Computing ·

2023/10/15

It's finally Spook Month here on Advent of Computing! To kick things off I'm tackling a bit of a mystery. Between 1972 and 1982 there is only one well documented virus. This period is book ended with plenty of sources and, yes, even viruses. But this decade long span of time has almost nothing! Was this era truly safe from the grips of malicious code? Or is there a secret history lurking just beneath the surface? Selected Sources: https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/358453.358455 - Worms at

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01:03:45

Episode 117 - What's in a Byte?

Advent of Computing ·

2023/09/24

Byte has to be one of the most recognizable parts of the digital lexicon. It's an incantation that can be recognized by even the uninitiated. But where does the byte come from? Has it always existed, or did it more recently come into being? And, more specifically, why is a byte 8 bits? Is it some holdover from long ago, or is there some iron clad rule of 8's? Selected Sources: https://archive.org/details/byte-magazine-1977-02/page/n145/mode/1up?view=theater - Buchholz on the "byte" in

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01:01:27

Episode 116 - Monte Carlo

Advent of Computing ·

2023/09/10

It's finally time! In this episode we are looking at the Monte Carlo method, perhaps the first practical computer program that could outpace human capability. The best part: the method relies on a random walk to reach a statistically valid answer! Selected Sources: https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/10596 - Igniting the Light Elements https://library.lanl.gov/cgi-bin/getfile?00326866.pdf - The Beginning of the Monte Carlo Method, Nick Metropolis

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01:08:29

Episode 115 - Digital Lifeforms

Advent of Computing ·

2023/08/27

I will admit, the title here is a bit of click bait. In the early 1950s a researcher named Nils Aall Barricelli started in on a bold project. His goal was to simulate evolution on a computer and, in doing so, create a perfect lab to study evolutionary processes. What he found was astonishing. Given a simple rule set these interesting patterns emerged. He called them symbioorganisms. Despite being simple numeric constructs, they exhibited many properties of living things. Did Barricelli create a

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11:01

Reading - The Story of Mel

Advent of Computing ·

2023/08/26

This episode is simply a reading of the Story of Mel. I opened last episode with an excerpt, but didn't feel right leaving it at that. So, I present, the Story of Mel as written by Ed Nather and preserved in the Jargon file.

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01:06:06

Episode 114 - The LGP-30: A Forgotten Machine

Advent of Computing ·

2023/08/15

In 1956 Librascope released the LGP-30, a truly wild machine. It was, for the time, the most simple and cheap machine that could actually be useful. It was the size of a desk when contemporary machines took up small rooms. It plugged into a normal wall outlet while other machines requires special power feeds. It was, perhaps, the first hint of a personal computer. And at its heart was a magnetic drum that only a true programmer could love. Selected Sources:

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01:10:20

Episode 113 - Prolog, Part II

Advent of Computing ·

2023/07/30

I'm wrapping up my dive into Prolog with... Prolog itself! This episode I'm actually covering the development of Prolog, using all the natural language processing lore we covered last time. Along the way we will see how Prolog developed from a set of tools, and how those tools were generalized into a useful language. Selected Sources: http://alain.colmerauer.free.fr/alcol/ArchivesPublications/PrologHistory/19november92.pdf - The Birth of Prolog

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01:08:46

Episode 112 - Prolog, Part I

Advent of Computing ·

2023/07/16

I've been told I need to do an episode about Prolog. Well, here's the start of that process. To talk about Prolog we first need to come to grips with natural language processing, it's tools, and it's languages. This episode we are doing just that, going from ELIZA to Planner ro SHRDLU in an attempt to figure out how AI was first taught human tongues, where smoke and mirrors end, and where facinting programming begins. Selected Sources: https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/365153.365168 -

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01:03:17

Episode 111 - To Boldly Transmit

Advent of Computing ·

2023/07/02

Space is cool, in all meanings of the word. Not only is it wondrous, vast, and fascinating, it can also be a cold place. It's also a very useful place to put things. This episode we are looking at the first practical use of space: communication satellites. Selected Source: https://archive.org/details/BigBounc1960 - The Big Bounce https://archive.org/details/dtic-ada-141865-ieee-centenial-journal-1984-ocr/page/n67/mode/2up - A Signal Corp Space Opera

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01:07:58

Episode 110 - The Atari 2600

Advent of Computing ·

2023/06/18

I don't usually cover video games. When I do, you know it's for a weird reason. This episode we are looking at the Atari VCS 2600, it's strange hardware, and how it fits into the larger story of the rise of microprocessors. These new tiny chips were already changing the world, but they brought along their own problems. Selected source: https://spectrum.ieee.org/atari-2600 - Inventing the Atari 2600 https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/2012/09/102658257-05-01-acc.pdf - Al Alcorn

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01:02:35

Episode 109 - What's Up With Microcontrollers?

Advent of Computing ·

2023/06/04

What really is the deal with microcontrollers? Are they just little computers... or are they something totally different? This episode we are looking at the development of the microcontroller through the history of the TMS1000.

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56:27

Episode 108 - The Mundaneum, Part II

Advent of Computing ·

2023/05/21

This episode we pick back up where we left off. We are looking at the roots of the Mundaneum, the applications of the Universal Decimal Code, and how it call connects to hypertext. Selected Sources: https://web.archive.org/web/20051227184732/http://people.lis.uiuc.edu/~wrayward/otlet/xanadu.htm - Visions of Xanadu https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/items/4184 -- Selected Essays of Paul Otlet

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01:06:07

Episode 107 - The Mundaneum, Part I

Advent of Computing ·

2023/05/07

The Internet is the closest we've come to a universal store of all human knowledge. However, it's not the first pass at this lofty goal. In this episode(and the next) we are looking at the Mundaneum, a project started in the 1890s to address the information problem. How is it connected to the larger story of hypertext? And how can this older project inform our views on the information problem? Selected sources: https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/items/4184 -- Selected Essays of Paul Otlet

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01:12:24

Episode 106 - Digital Eyes

Advent of Computing ·

2023/04/16

Back in episode 90 I made a passing reference to the Cyclops, the first consumer digital camera. It's this masterstroke of hackery that uses a RAM chip as a makeshift image sensor. In this episode I'm coming back around to the Cyclops and taking a look at the origins of digital imaging in general. Selected Sources: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gmSeVfmZHw - Terry Walker CHM lecture https://sci-hub.ru/10.1109/6.591664 - The origins of the PN junction https://sci-hub.ru/10.1364/AO.11.000522 - The

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01:18:11

Episode 105 - Apple's Growing Pains

Advent of Computing ·

2023/04/02

The Apple III was a pretty slick machine... in theory. From a lack of launch software, to strait up hardware failures, Apple's 3rd computer didn't really win in the market place. Why was that? Was the machine setup for failure from the start? Was it's case really designed before it's motherboard? When it comes to the III there's a surprising amount of folklore to untangle. Selected Sources: https://archive.org/details/sim_byte_1985-01_10_1/page/166/mode/1up?view=theater - Interview with

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