Advent of Computing

I bet you can't make a virus for a home computer. That challenge was the start of an interesting saga. It would end with an honest to goodness computer virus spreading among Commodore 64 users. That virus may have made it as far as America and Turkey. It at least infected the offices of a computer magazine.

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Boo! Welcome to Spook Month 2026! I start off my scary coverage by looking at the dangers of the mainframe rooms of the 50s and 60s. We all know that running computers can be a drag. But can it be deadly? Answering that question takes me through government documents, maintenance manuals, and odd recollections of days gone by.

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At the end of the 1940s IBM stood at a crossroads. The punch card company had yet to enter the electronic computer market. Forces within and without were pushing them in that direction, but many man in blue suits would resist the coming change. Out of this climate emerged the Type 701, IBM's first commercial machine. How did it beat the odds and make it to market? And what even did folk do with these early machines?

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Who can't resist Librascope hardware? Well, me, for one. And David from Usagi Electric is in the same boat. In this episode we sit down to talk about his LGP-21, how he got it, how he got it working, and what the machine can do!

Subscribe to Usagi Electric to see the full project: https://www.youtube.com/@UsagiElectric

How did you learn about computers? And how in depth was your education? For some the answer is the Bi-Tran Six: an educational machine released in 1965. This was one of the first computer trainers, and it represents a very interesting take on design. It's a machine that's small, simple, and can even be disassembled while running. But exactly how was it designed, and what was it used for? What makes the Bi-Tran Six so different from other machines?

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Binary is synonymous with digital computing. But is it the only way to crunch numbers? The short answer is no. The long answer, well, that's today's topic. Today we are talking about ternary, aka base 3. From it's early uses in the 19th century, to actual computers, and even theoretical designs; ternary proves to be a difficult topic to track down... and a very unique one.

Selected sources:

https://www.mortati.com/glusker/fowler/fowlerbio.htm - Information and a reconstruction of Fowler's contraption

https://dl.acm.org/doi/epdf/10.1145/776378.776392 - Part I of the TERNAC papers, rationale!

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It's no secret that I've been fascinated by odd UNIX clones for a while. When I got invited back to speak at VCF West this year I decided to share that fascination with a captive audience. In this talk we look at Idris and CROMIX, and ask the simple question: why would you want UNIX free UNIX?

VCFed will be posting the video version of this presentation in the coming weeks. I'll add a link here once that's up.

SEE my slides, here: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1v21An2jTGbKn4HV7Orr7xQcjnj3Cju_iMgNX50UcjeI/edit?usp=sharing

Install Co-Idris: https://github.com/hansake/Whitesmiths-Idris-OS

Install ST-Idris: https://github.com/9nut/IDRIS-OS-for-Atari-ST

And DEFINITELY install CROMIX: https://www.sydneysmith.com/wordpress/run-cromix/

In 1950 Northrup unveiled their MAgnetic Drum DIgital Differential Analyser. The machine is a wild piece of technology; a rendering of an analog computer in digital encoding. But how did we get here? How did a project to guide a missile lead to a mass produced computer? And what does it have to do with suspiciously dry martinis?

Selected Sources:

https://sci-hub.st/10.1109/MAHC.2003.1179869 - 2003 paper on MADDIDA

Like Advent of Computing? Then check out the after show! Adjunct of Computing is now LIVE: YouTube Spotify Apple Podcasts

EMUL-8 is a fascinating programming language. It's described in just one paper from 1977. It's a mix of features from APL, LISP, ALGOL, and SNOBOL. And, I think, it's a wonderful window into how counterculture and home computing collided.

I mean that both in the specific and the abstract. This episode we are looking at APL, which stands for A Programming Language. APL was developed in the mid 50s, but didn't see a working implementation until 1965. It's a language that truly looks like no others, but has some odd parallels to everything from BASIC to LISP to linear algebra.

https://www.jsoftware.com/papers/APL.htm - A Programming Language