Michael Buckland at Ars2013 :: TOTAL RECALL

#ChronoMedia: https://mprove.de/chrono?q=48.31181,14.2907&z=14.61&r=64&t=47&d=0&s=1&i=1

Direct utube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNMAKbH6qyE

#ComputingHistory #HistoryOfHypertext before Vannevar Bush

"More Fun Making It" creates fun videos about repairing and restoring classic computers and other tech, especially the ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Amiga etc. You can follow at:

@morefunmakingit

There are already over a hundred videos uploaded. If these haven't federated to your server yet, you can browse them all at https://makertube.net/a/morefunmakingit/videos

A fascinating new look at what is basically an Apple II Mockingboard soundcard...for the PC...sold by Mindscape.

"Do you own the rarest PC sound card in the world?" -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eeo4INoGyRY

Linux User Space makes videos about the history of Linux distributions and Linux-related software. You can follow at:

@linuxuserspace@tilvids.com

There are already 26 videos uploaded, if they haven've federated to your server yet you can browse them all at https://tilvids.com/a/linuxuserspace/videos

You can also follow their general social media account at @linuxuserspace@mastodon.social

Johnny Blanchard / Re-Enthused makes videos about retro computers and consoles, including both famous and obscure systems. You can follow at:

@johnny_blanchard

There are already 570 videos uploaded. If these haven't federated to your server yet, you can browse them all at https://makertube.net/a/johnny_blanchard/videos

You can also follow Blanchard's general social media account at @jonn_blanchard

“Developed by John Frankovich and Frank Helwig, Director worked by reading a special Director tape, which contained predefined instructions that automated job execution. This innovation introduced batch processing, a concept that later became a standard feature in operating systems.“

TechRadar: Happy birthday, Director! The first operating system in the world turns 70 today

https://www.techradar.com/pro/happy-birthday-director-the-first-operating-system-in-the-world-turns-70-today

40 ans de GNU :

https://ploum.net/2023-09-27-40ans-gnu.html

Now also in Chinese, thanks to matling:

https://matling.fit/blog/40ans-gnu

Also on #gemini :

gemini://lex.matling.fit/blog/40ans-gnu

A bit of #computinghistory : part 3 of "20 years of Linux on the desktop".

When mobile started to disrupt desktop computing…

https://ploum.net/2025-03-08-linux_desktop3.html

News from July 23, 1987 (Electronics magazine).

20 years of Linux on the Desktop (part 3)

Read chapter 3 of the book I’m currently writing about the history of Linux on the desktop.

https://ploum.net/2025-03-08-linux_desktop3.html

Still looking for an agent or a publisher to make a dead-tree version of it…

"The mix-in revolution: How an ice cream innovator in Somerville influenced Lisp pioneers at the MIT AI Lab­—and made a lasting mark on programming."

https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/02/25/1111238/the-mix-in-revolution/

Just found out about a 2009 TV film on retro computing called "Micro Men". It's a sort of comedy-drama about UK computer manufacturers in the 1980s, done on a tiny budget by mixing in archive footage. It works really well!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XH5L-iTIbP8

There's also a video of some of the real people depicted watching it and commenting on the authenticity:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaonVYOTSsk

cc @retrocomputing

Today, an #offpunk user encountered a bug: a #gemini page could not be opened and was considered as "message/news".

I quickly pushed a workaround and investigated. The "message/news" was returned by the venerable "file" (which is on every *nix system since the last 50 years).

I wrote to the "file" mailing-list, had a nice exchange and managed to find the bug in "file". Which was promptly fixed by the maintainer and will be soon on your machine.

I free software!

A coffee story: The original live streaming star

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOqlDsfTC6g

Radical Software: Women, Art & Computing 1960-1991 (Vienna, 28 Feb 25) explores the role of women in the development of computing and digital art. A one-day symposium at TU Wien features keynotes, panels & discussions with leading scholars & artists.
https://informatics.tuwien.ac.at/news/2833

I finished reading Jill Lepore's "If Then: How the Simulmatics Corporation Invented the Future". It's in some ways a history of the 1960s, but the focus keeps returning to the scientists (mainly Ithiel de Sola Pool) who try to use computer modeling to solve elections, wars, civil unrest, and (of course) marketing. The author is really mad that this early "data science" era has dropped off the radar of today's practitioners -- and that despite the controversies and (extremely bad) fiction about it, we didn't get any sort of data protection laws in the U.S.

But, the book undercuts its premise in a lot of ways by emphasizing how _bad_ Simulmatics was at its jobs, particularly its ARPA contracts in Vietnam. This historical analysis -- mismanagement, translators and interview subjects who said what researchers wanted to hear, poor personnel choices, and unrealistic goals -- obscures the fact that what they were trying simply would not work, even if executed perfectly.

You cannot feed a statistical model a bunch of data, analyze correlations, then start making accurate predictions about interventions like "talk more about civil rights" or "give Vietnamese communities more televisions" (no, seriously.) It doesn't work, not because people are fundamentally unpredictable, but because (a) people are actors too -- your study subjects and opponents get to take their own actions in response to yours, and (b) correlation is not causation. But the "big data only" approach pioneered by Simulmatics doesn't even try to validate model accuracy via experiment!

Ctrl Alt Rees (aka Rees) posts in-depth videos about retro computing and retro gaming, especially old PCs and Atari game consoles. You can follow their video account at:

@rees

There are already over 300 videos uploaded. If they haven't federated to your server yet, you can browse them all at https://makertube.net/a/rees/videos

You can also follow Rees's general social media account at @ctrlaltrees

Today I stood in front of an Apple Computer 1 (aka Apple I), Apple's first product, at the National Museum of American History in DC.

Here's my photo.

I ordered a new, ceramic and gold MC68010 to go in my Amiga 2000 as I remove the A2620 '020 board due to issues with some tightly-coded old and new OCS/ECS demos (my main use of the system). I came to realize some of these issues would exhibit with the '010 as well, and for very little performance gain.

And so, the loveld 68010 may become one of my "desk chips" to glance at from time to time as I do my thing at the desk, like my lovely ceramic and gold Freescale '000.

Veronica Explains is an excellent account which makes fun videos about all kinds of computing topics, including Linux, free open source software and retro computing. You can follow at:

@vkc

There are already over 40 videos uploaded. If these haven't federated to your server yet, you can browse them all at https://tinkerbetter.tube/a/vkc/videos