Advent of Computing

By: Sean Haas
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  • Summary

  • Welcome to Advent of Computing, the show that talks about the shocking, intriguing, and all too often relevant history of computing. A lot of little things we take for granted today have rich stories behind their creation, in each episode we will learn how older tech has lead to our modern world.
    Sean Haas 2019
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Episodes
  • Episode 144 - RABBITS

    Episode 144 - RABBITS
    Oct 27 2024

    :(){ :|:& };:
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    21 mins
  • Episode 143 - The Haunted Hard Drive

    Episode 143 - The Haunted Hard Drive
    Oct 20 2024

    Have you ever felt like a computer just refuses to work? Like a machine has a mind of it's own? In 1970 a hard drive at the National Farmers Union Corp. office decided to do just that. That year it started crashing for apparently no reason. It would take 2 years and 56 crashes to sort out the problem. The ultimate solution would leave more questions than answers. Was the hard drive haunted? Or was something else at play?

    Selected Sources:

    https://archive.org/details/computercrime0000mckn/page/98/mode/2up - Computer Crime

    https://archive.org/details/sim_computerworld_1972-08-02_6_31/mode/1up?view=theater - Computer World article
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    22 mins
  • Episode 142 - OS and JEDGAR

    Episode 142 - OS and JEDGAR
    Oct 13 2024

    This time we are diving back into the Jargon File to take a look at some hacker folklore. Back in the day hackers at MIT spent their time spying on one another's terminals. That is, until some intrepid programmer found a way to fight back.

    Selected Sources:

    http://www.catb.org/esr/jargon/html/os-and-jedgar.html - OS and JEDGAR

    https://github.com/PDP-10/its - ITS restoration project
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    19 mins

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Profile Image for Kevin Chadwick

Very well researched on Ada

A couple of gripes.
End if
End program_name
End loop Outer_Loop

actually works better than }

It isn't old but just not C-like. Also I use Ada for embedded and desktop and intend to include it in Flutter. Some may want very simple languages and in that sense I agree but Ada could do it all. I disagree with niche languages being anything but languages having faults. The extra effort of learning multiple string types and packages is easier than learning and keeping polished on multiple languages.

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