computer history

programming languages

Updating The Single Most Influential Book of the BASIC Era

In a way, these two books are responsible for my entire professional career [https://blog.codinghorror.com/everything-i-needed-to-know-about-programming-i-learned-from-basic/] . With early computers, you didn't boot up to a fancy schmancy desktop, or a screen full of apps you could easily poke and prod with your finger. No, those computers

By Jeff Atwood ·
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deep learning

Thanks For Ruining Another Game Forever, Computers

In 2006, after visiting the Computer History Museum's exhibit on Chess [https://blog.codinghorror.com/chess-computer-v-human/], I opined: > We may have reached an inflection point. The problem space of chess is so astonishingly large that incremental increases in hardware speed and algorithms are unlikely to result in

By Jeff Atwood ·
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hardware

To ECC or Not To ECC

On one of my visits to the Computer History Museum [http://www.computerhistory.org/] – and by the way this is an absolute must-visit place if you are ever in the San Francisco bay area – I saw an early Google server rack circa 1999 in the exhibits. Not too fancy, right?

By Jeff Atwood ·
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hardware

Building a Computer the Google Way

If you're ever in Silicon Valley, I highly recommend checking out the Computer History Museum. Where else can you see a live demonstration of the only known working PDP-1 in existence, and actually get to play the original Spacewar on it? I did. It was incredible. I got

By Jeff Atwood ·
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software development concepts

If Loving Computers is Wrong, I Don't Want to Be Right

I happened upon Russ Walter's Secret Guide to Computers around 1993. By then it was already up to the 18th edition. The first version of The Secret Guide was published in 1972 as a self-typed 17 page pamphlet. The latest edition is a hulking 607-page monster, a rambling,

By Jeff Atwood ·
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programming languages

Wind, Angle, and Power

One of the oldest computer games is Artillery [http://www.atariarchives.org/morebasicgames/showpage.php?page=2]. It's all about going mano a mano with nothing but wind, angle, and power [http://www.armchairarcade.com/aamain/content.php?article.51] on your side: > The origins of artillery

By Jeff Atwood ·
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blogging

John Dvorak, blogging O.G.

Like Steve Broback [http://blogbusinesssummit.com/2005/05/blogs_and_googl_2.htm] , I spent many of my formative years in computing reading John Dvorak's magazine column. > I started enthusiastically reading John Dvorak's columns back in 1984, at my first job selling IBM PCs and

By Jeff Atwood ·
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