If you're into listening to podcasts, I highly recommend Sean Haas's Advent of Computing podcast, which bills itself as "the show that talks about the shocking, intriguing, and all too often relevant history of computing."
Ask HN: What are some great posts or articles about history of computing?
101–110 of 114 posts
Re: Ask HN: What are some great posts or articles about history of computing?
#102A classic for me is Fire in the Valley. Really great history of computing up to 1999.
Re: Ask HN: What are some great posts or articles about history of computing?
#103The Jargon (published as The Hacker's Dictionary) is a great source: http://catb.org/jargon/html/
Re: Ask HN: What are some great posts or articles about history of computing?
#104We interviewed the inventor of PowerPoint for our blog, and he gave a fascinating inside story of how he almost sold to Apple before eventually sealing a deal with Microsoft: https://blog.zamzar.com/2016/06/10/deal-of-the-century-how-m... We also recently interviewed the creator of Microsoft Word who talked about working with Bill Gates in the 1980s: https://blog.zamzar.com/2020/03/20/an-interview-with-richard... For…
In addition, the inventor of Powerpoint has written an entire book on its development including this anecdote in great detail called Sweating Bullets[0].
Re: Ask HN: What are some great posts or articles about history of computing?
#105A classic for me is Fire in the Valley. Really great history of computing up to 1999.
Just finished it. It is funny that it ends just shy of the big dot-com crash.
Re: Ask HN: What are some great posts or articles about history of computing?
#106Several books on the history:
Fire in the Valley: The Birth and Death of the Personal Computer 3rd Edition by Michael Swaine (Author), Paul Freiberger (Author)
Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins Of The Internet Paperback – January 21, 1998 by Katie Hafner (Author)
Re: Ask HN: What are some great posts or articles about history of computing?
#107The Digital Antiquarian - A history of computer entertainment and digital culture
It's a treasure trove of computer history, gathered from countless sources. I've spent many happy hours in the company of the author, amused and educated by the stories.
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To give a glimpse, some of my favorites:
Will Wright's City in a Box - https://www.filfre.net/2016/06/simcity-part-1-will-wrights-c...
The Lemming Effect - https://www.filfre.net/2017/10/games-on-the-mersey-part-5-th...
Xerox PARC - https://www.filfre.net/2013/01/xerox-parc/
Macintosh - https://www.filfre.net/2014/02/macintosh/
The BBC Micro - https://www.filfre.net/2012/10/the-bbc-micro/
A Tale of Three Languages - https://www.filfre.net/2012/03/a-tale-of-two-languages/
Pascal and the P Machine - https://www.filfre.net/2012/03/pascal-and-the-p-machine/
Re: Ask HN: What are some great posts or articles about history of computing?
#108The Most Important Software Innovations
link: https://dwheeler.com/innovation/innovation.html
hn: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18691399
Too many people confuse software innovations with other factors, such as the increasing speed of computer and network hardware. This paper tries to end the confusion by identifying the most important innovations in software, removing hardware advances and products that didn’t embody significant new software innovations. This paper presents its criteria for the most important software innovations and sources, the software innovations themselves, discusses software patents and what’s not an important software innovation, and then closes with Conclusions.
The results may surprise you.
Re: Ask HN: What are some great posts or articles about history of computing?
#109The Cuckoo’s Egg, Cliff Stoll
Dreaming in code, Scott Rosenberg
The Information: A history, a theory, a flood, James Gleick
Turing’s Cathedral, Dyson
The longitude prize, Joan Dash (for kids)
Soul of a new machine, Tracy Kidder
Re: Ask HN: What are some great posts or articles about history of computing?
#110In the Beginning… Was the Command Line, an essay by Neal Stephenson:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Beginning..._Was_the_Co...