How do you make a computer act less like a computer? It sounds like some kind of riddle, but in the early 1960s it was an actual problem. As IBM customers transitioned from tabulators to computers they ran into all sorts of practical issues. Programmers became a hot commodity. But how do you find a programmer in 1959? And how can you even afford such a luxury? Wouldn't it be better if you could just use your new computer as a tabulator? Well, with RPG, all that and more was possible.

In the early 1960s a neat little machine came out of MIT. Well, kind of MIT. The machine was called LINC. It was small, flexible, and designed to live in laboratories. Some have called it the first personal computer. But, is that true? Does it have some secret that will unseat my beloved LGP-30? And how does DEC fit into the picture?

The LGP-30 is one of my favorite computers. It's small, scrappy, strange, and wonderous. Among its many wonders are two obscure languages: ACT-I and ACT-III. In this episode we are exploring the ACTS, how the LGP-30 was programmed in practice, and why I've been losing sleep for the last few weeks.

When I was down at VCF SoCal I ran into a strange machine: the Keypact Micro-VIP. It's a terminal without a keyboard, covered in dials, with a speaker and a switch labeled "voice". This chance encounter with the unknown sent me down a wild path. It involved the creeping spread of computing, chicken feed, door to door life insurance salesmen, and at least one early hacker.

A special treat from VCF SoCal. While visiting I had the chance to host a panel on restoration and preservation. I was joined by:

David from Usagi Electric (https://www.youtube.com/@UsagiElectric)

Rob from Souther Amis (https://www.southernamis.com/)

Jim, Former Executive Director Computer Museum of America (https://computerhalloffame.org/home/about/)

Have you ever looked at an old computer and seen a weird typewriter thing tacked on? In most cases that's a device called a Flexowriter. It's half electric typewriter, half teleprinter, half tape reader, and all business! This episode we are chronicling the rise, fall, and weird business dealings of the Flexowriter.

In the modern day Windows is a power house, but that wasn't always the case. In this episode we are looking at the fraught development of Windows 1.0. During development it was called vaporware, it was panned in the press, roasted at at least one trade show, and even called... "eclectic". Through it all a vision in lime green would take form.

This episode we are taking a trip back to UNIX world. We're looking at IDRIS, the first clone of UNIX. It was supposed to be highly compatible, but use no code from Bell Labs. IDRIS ran on everything from the Intel 8080 up to the IBM System/370. There was even a version that could run MS-DOS programs. Sound too good to be true? Well, that may be the case.

Selected Sources:

https://archive.org/details/aquartercenturyofunixpeterh.salus_201910/page/n196/mode/1up - A Quarter Century of UNIX

https://github.com/hansake/Whitesmiths-Idris-OS - Co-Idris disk images and executables

In 1970 a little language called BLISS emerged from Carnegie Mellon University. It was a systems language, meant for operating systems and compilers. It was designed, in part, as a response to Dijkstra's famous Go To Considered Harmful paper. It had no data types. It used the most bizzare form of the pointer I've ever seen. And it was a direct competitor to C. Sound interesting, yet?

Selected Sources:

https://bitsavers.computerhistory.org/pdf/dec/decus/pdp10/DECUS-10-118-PartII_BlissReadings_Dec71.pdf - Readings on BLISS

https://www.cs.tufts.edu/~nr/cs257/archive/ronald-brender/bliss.pdf - A History of BLISS

In 1961 Texas Instruments unveiled the Molecular Electronic Computer, aka: Mol-E-Com. It was a machine that fit in the palm of your hand, but had all the power of a much larger computer. This was in an age of hefty machines, which made the achievement all the more marvelous. How was this even possible? It was all thanks to the wonders of molecular electronics, and a boat load of funding from the US Air Force.

Selected Sources:

 https://web.archive.org/web/20160304071831/http://corphist.computerhistory.org/corphist/documents/doc-496d289787271.pdf - Invention of the Integrated Circuit, Kilby

https://archive.org/details/DTIC_AD0411614/page/n15/mode/2up - Investigation of Silicon Functional Blocks, TI

https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/AD0273850.pdf - Silicon Semiconductor Networks, TI