Tag: Recent History
Heading up to Denver, gonna see if I can’t unwind pic.twitter.com/30SifoLRX1
— South Park (@SouthPark) September 27, 2020
— January 6th Committee (@January6thCmte) June 10, 2022
Altair 8800. The pioneering microcomputer that galvanized hardware hackers. Building this kit made you learn hacking. Then you tried to figure out what to do with it.
Apple II. Steve Wozniak’s friendly, flaky, good-looking computer, wildly successful and the spark and soul of a thriving industry.
Atari 800. This home computer gave great graphics to game hackers like John Harris, though the company that made it was loath to tell you how it worked.
IBM PC. IBM’s entry into the personal computer market, which amazingly included a bit of the Hacker Ethic and took over.
IBM 704. IBM was The Enemy and this was its machine, the Hulking Giant computer in MIT’s Building 26. Later modified into the IBM 709, then the IBM 7090. Batch-processed and intolerable.
LISP Machine. The ultimate hacker computer, invented mostly by Greenblatt and subject of a bitter dispute at MIT.
PDP-1. Digital Equipment’s first minicomputer and in 1961 an interactive godsend to the MIT hackers and a slap in the face to IBM fascism.
PDP-6. Designed in part by Kotok, this mainframe computer was the cornerstone of the AI lab, with its gorgeous instruction set and sixteen sexy registers.
Sol Computer. Lee Felsenstein’s terminal-and-computer, built in two frantic months, almost the computer that turned things around. Almost wasn’t enough.
Tom Swift Terminal. Lee Felsenstein’s legendary, never-to-be-built computer terminal, which would give the user ultimate leave to get his hands on the world.
TX-0. Filled a small room, but in the late fifties, this $3 million machine was world’s first personal computer—for the community of MIT hackers that formed around it.
Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution – 25th Anniversary Edition
Steven Levy
I think these are from March 95. Taken on film, with a Pentax K1000. They are a bit faded.
Fun fact – While in Seattle I got a free espresso for knowing the answer to this:
Q: What was the real first name of Lolita, from the book Lolita?
A: Dolores
From the book:
“Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta. She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita.”
From the comments: 60 years ago and when this was made, 60 years ago was 1897. Let that sink in.
During an interview that was live-streamed on the app Periscope, Bush made the comments to New Hampshire’s The Union Leader answering a question about his plans for tax reform.
“My aspiration for the country and I believe we can achieve it, is 4 percent growth as far as the eye can see. Which means we have to be a lot more productive, workforce participation has to rise from its all-time modern lows. It means that people need to work longer hours and, through their productivity, gain more income for their families. That’s the only way we’re going to get out of this rut that we’re in.”
Candace Smith, July 8, 2015, ABC NEWS
From the Wayback machine. Captures from March 3, 2000
The UI looked thus:
By Njahnke – Screenshot taken on my computer, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=58268108
Look further into the history of this seminal peer to peer application at wikipedia
A decade after Operation Desert Storm, the US is still at war with Iraq. It’s the longest air war in American history. Nearly 12,000 missions last year alone were flown against 300 Iraqi targets. It’s the economic sanctions, though, that are causing the worst collateral damage in Iraq.
After eight years of embargo, Iraq’s currency has lost 98% of its value, and there’s a total break down in health care, education, and basic social services. Even food and water are hard to come by, and UNICEF reports that sanctions cost the lives of 200 children each day, and as many adults.
Two of the highest UN officials in charge of administering the sanctions have resigned in protest. Even Scott Ritter, the maverick arms inspector, calls US policy toward Iraq “morally bankrupt,” pointing out that it has only helped make Saddam Hussein stronger and Iraq’s civil society weaker.
(Hosted by Christopher Lydon)
from April 2000, Connection Archives
Ron Rosenbaum is the Edgy Enthusiast at the New York Observer, the journalist who’s made a beat out of his own obsessive passions and interests now for thirty years. If there’s a common thread that runs through The Simpsons, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Nabokov’s “Pale Fire,” Edith Wharton, Jorge Luis Borges and Mystery Science Theater 3000 it’s that Ron Rosenbaum finds it brilliant, beautiful or redemptive.
He’s a close reader of Shakespeare and the Bible and this summer’s Survivor series; a lover of classic films, epic poetry and borderline bad pop music. He writes and reports only as a rationale to read more and plunge further into his labyrinth of oddball ideas, conspiracy theories and misconceptions about the world.
It’s Ron’s world and welcome to it. The Edgy Enthusiast Ron Rosenbaum, this hour on The Connection.
(Hosted By Christopher Lydon)
Guests:
Ron Rosenbaum, Editor and Author of the NY Observer’s Edgy Enthusiast.
