Retro Computing Roundtable

RCR Episode 130

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Panelists: Paul Hagstrom (hosting), Earl Evans, Jack Nutting, and Carrington Vanston

Host's Topic: What good is source code?

As more original source code becomes available (we’ll talk about a couple [Apollo Guidance Computer and LucasArts’ Habitat] later this episode—but before that fairly high profile source code from Apple II DOS, Xerox Alto, Microsoft BASIC, CP/M, Prince of Persia, Glider, Wander, Star Raiders, and more), what kinds of things do we hope to learn, or have we learned, or can we do with these? Are they just historical artifacts, or can they be used in the future as learning tools, or in new software, or...?

Retro Computing News:

  • Vintage Computer Festival Zurich, November 19-20, 2016
  • Inverse ATASCII (S1EB1 Atari Portfolio)
  • Easy to Learn, Hard to Master—The Fate of Atari (documentary Kickstarter)
  • The Code that Took America to the Moon Was Just Published to GitHub
  • Don Eyles walks through AGC source code
  • AGC source (Apollo 11) on Github
  • “Computer for Apollo” video
  • Digital Apollo (book)
  • CommVEX 12.0, Saturday July 30, and Sunday July 31
    • Bill Seiler (VIC-20) will be there
    • 7 Classic Home PC Follow-Ups That Were Never Released
    • Source code to LucasArts’ Habitat posted
      • Habitat on Github
      • How To Write a History of Writing Software
      • PocketCHIP
      • Blake Patterson (Byte Cellar) finds old photos of his TI 99/4a
      • Retrohistories: The Prehistory of Bungie
      • Megaprocessor makes mainstream news as Tetris machine
      • Brianna Wu asks Millennials to identify a modem
      • Tetris on the Green building

        • Vintage Computer Commercial

        • Quantum Link/Habitat

          • Retro Computing Gift Idea:

          • AGC DSKY model

            • Auction Picks:

            • Carrington: Mac Performa 475 with Apple IIe card
              • AppleVision 750AV Display
              • Earl: Apple Graphics Tablet
              • Paul: Radio Controlled Flight Simulator for PC
                • UNIVAC ashtray
                • Lisa pile, pickup only
                • Jack: Jet TV Electromagnetica HC-85 Computer
                  • See also: Electromagnetica Jet on old-computers.com

                    • Feedback/Discussion:

                    • @rcrpodcast on Twitter
                    • Vintage Computer Forum
                    • RCR Podcast on Facebook
                    • Throwback Network
                      • Throwback Network on Facebook

                        • Intro / Closing Song: Back to Oz by John X - link

                        Show audio files hosted by CyberEars

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