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#computerhistory

3 posts3 participants0 posts today

Memoirs of the CP/M creator released:

“Our father, Gary Kildall, was one of the founders of the personal computer industry, but you probably don’t know his name. Those who have heard of him may recall the myth that he ‘missed’ the opportunity to become Bill Gates by going flying instead of meeting with IBM. Unfortunately, this tall tale paints Gary as a ‘could-have-been,’ ignores his deep contributions, and overshadows his role as an inventor of key technologies that define how computer platforms run today.

Gary viewed computers as learning tools rather than profit engines. His career choices reflect a different definition of success, where innovation means sharing ideas, letting passion drive your work and making source code available for others to build upon. His work ethic during the 1970s resembles that of the open-source community today."

computerhistory.org/blog/in-hi

CHM · In His Own Words: Gary KildallGary Kildall was a pioneer of personal computer software. He wrote programming language tools, including assemblers (Intel 4004), interpreters (BASIC), and compilers (PL/M). He created a widely-used disk operating system (CP/M). He and his wife, Dorothy McEwen, started a successful company called Digital Research to develop and market CP/M, which for years was the dominant operating system for personal microcomputers. Thousands of programs were written to run under it, and a million or more people might have used it.

#programming #softwareEngineering #computerHistory #bibliography #Sandewall #softwareIndividuals #LISP #CAISOR
screwlisp.small-web.org/comple

My promised bibliography of open-access CAISOR #AI articles from the 1960s-2010s. Each citation links into codeberg.org/tfw/pawn-75 's collected oddities. Because I focused on preserving rarities such as draft versions of papers from the 60s and a single sentence article with JOHN overwrote onto it, my collection should be regarded as a primary archive.

screwlisp.small-web.orgSandewall’s Combined Agenda for Information Analysis, Software Systems, Open-Access Publishing and Knowledge Representation bibliography and links

Wir waren heute in Bad Hindelang Hinterstein. Und ich hatte es nicht mehr Präsent, aber natürlich, das ist ja der Ort, an den Konrad Zuse am Ende des 2. Weltkriegs mit all seiner bisherigen Arbeit geflohen ist!
(Falls es außer mir noch jemanden interessiert, der hier abgebildete Rechner ist eine Z22, ein viel späterer Röhrenrechner (1955) und nicht die Z4, welche in Teilen in einem Zug ins Allgäu geschafft wurde!)
#Zuse #zusekg #computerhistory

Oh wow, I just learned what Lisp's "car" and "cdr" stand for!

From this video: youtu.be/2MYzvQ1v8Ww?si=rAvzDx

It's from an IBM 7090 or 7094 computer, if I'm hearing Sussman correctly.

Each instruction had two parts: an address part, and a decrement part. Those got put into a register.

So, "car" is "contents of the address register" and "cdr" is "contents of the decrement register"!

Thanks to a book recommendation by @bert_hubert [1], I went on a tangent learning more about the absolutely fascinating history and workings of core memory (and core rope memory, its read-only version). Some of this also very interesting for #PermaComputing and giving me ideas for future art projects...

Apollo Core Rope Memory (restoration and read out of 50 year old memory from the Apollo Guidance Computer)
youtube.com/watch?v=hckwxq8rnr

Core Memory Explained and Demonstrated
youtube.com/watch?v=AwsInQLmjX

[1] eupolicy.social/@bert_hubert/1

El 20 de junio de 1994 Apple lanza #eworld, un servicio de suscripción para usuarios de #Mac diseñado para competir contra plataformas en línea emergentes.
Funcionaba como servicio de mensajería y agregador de noticias, este servicio de internet inicial ofrece a los clientes acceso a correo electrónico, un tablón de anuncios, descargas de software y soporte técnico.
Funcionaba en Mac y Apple IIGS, competía contra AOL, Delphi, CompuServe y Prodigy.
#retrocomputingmx #apple #computerhistory

#lispyGopherClimate #interview #transcript #webDev #technology #computerHistory #lisp #commonlisp #harlequin #CLIM

screwlisp.small-web.org/show/k

Summary and transcript of the first eight minutes of the hour-long downloadable episode, including Kent's summary of his personal web work in lisp (mostly at Harlequin) through the 80s and 90s.

@vindarel @khinsen (being the missing guests)
@kentpitman @dougmerritt @mdhughes

I'm hand-transcribing and summarizing, so this is something like part 1/6.

screwlisp.small-web.orgTranscript of KMP live interview on lisp web and testing 1/X

CARDIAC (CARDboard Illustrative Aid to Computation) via Adafruit Industries [Shared]

Back in the 1960’s and early 70’s Bell Labs made some very sophisticated educational kits available to high schools and colleges. Designed for classroom use, they included wonderful manuals written by Bell Labs staff. One of these kits, introduced in 1968, was CARDIAC: A CARDboard Illustrative Aid to Computation.

CARDIAC is a learning aid developed by David Hagelbarger and Saul Fingerman for Bell Telephone Laboratories in 1968 to teach high school students how computers work. The kit consists of an instruction manual and a die-cut cardboard “computer”.

welchwrite.com/blog/2025/06/16