Advent of Computing – Details, episodes & analysis

In which we discuss GPSS: the General Purpose Simulation Language. As for as languages go, this is a unique one. It's designed for certain types of simulations. It's code is just a handy way to feed a flowchart into a computer. It's design is closer to an analog computer than it is to a programming language. Yet GPSS is Turing Complete. Step inside and prepare to be... confused!

The big source of the show:

https://dl.acm.org/doi/epdf/10.1145/960118.808382 - The Development of GPSS

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The Olivetti Programma 101 isn't quite like any other machine. On first glance it looks like a big desktop calculator. Inside, it's a purebred computer... but strange one. It uses twisted spring steel for memory, has no addresses, and it's machine code looks more like a spell than a program. It's existence is due, in no small part, to a man being very mean to GE engineers.

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

I'm back to normal episodes, and I'm running out the gate with a weird one. Thoroughbred/OS was a multi-user and multi-tasking operating system for the IBM PC. It's mian interface was... BASIC of all things! What exactly is this oddity?

https://winworldpc.com/product/thoroughbred-os/662 - Try Out Thoroughbred/OS yourself

Today we are looking at VisiCalc, the original killer app. Hitting the market in 1979, VisiCalc was the first computer spreadsheet program. Through it's 6 year lifespan it was ported to everything from the Apple II to the IBM PC to the Apple III. It dominated the market and then... it disappeared.   Selected Sources:   https://conservancy.umn.edu/handle/11299/113026 - Oral History with Bricklin and Frankston   http://www.bricklin.com/history/intro.htm - Bricklin's personal website   https://sci-hub.se/10.1109/MAHC.2007.4338439 - The creation and demise of VisiCalc

The  Standards Eastern Automatic Computer was built by the National Bureau of Standards in 1948. It started crunching numbers in 1950 and stayed in constant operation until... 1964!  This early machine, festooned with vacuum tubes, lived well past the first transistorized computers. So what exactly is SEAC doing so far into the semiconductor future?

Selected Sources:

https://archive.org/details/circularofbureau551unse/page/n7/mode/2up - Circular 551

https://sci-hub.se/10.1109/85.238389 - EDVAC Draft Report

https://sci-hub.se/10.1145/1457720.1457763 - Imaging with SEAC

In this episode I talk with Aaron Reed, author of 50 Years of Text Games. We discuss the history of computer games, interactive fiction, business "gaming", and why we all love Adventure.

You can find Aaron's work here:

http://aaronareed.net/

Multitasking: we all do it. For a feature of modern computing multitasking has surprisingly old roots. It started out as timesharing on vacuum tube based machines, reached ubiquity on large computers, then hit a wall: the microcomputer. Multitasking didn't smoothly transition over as soon as home computers hit the scene. It took some time, and it took some adaptation. Today we are looking at what made timesharing work, early changes to microprocessors that paved the way for multitasking, and one of the first operating systems to support timesharing in the home.   Selected Sources:   https://www.roug.org/soren/6809/os9sysprog.html - OS-9 System Programmer's Manual   https://archive.org/details/byte-magazine-1979-01/page/n15/mode/2up - Article on the development of the 6809   https://sci-hub.se/10.1109/TEC.1962.5219356 - The One-Level Storage System

There's power in music, but not all tones are created equal. During the reign of Bell Telephone there was one tone in particular that opened up a world of possibilities: 2600 Hz. The devotees of this note were called phreakers, and in some cases they knew the telephone system better than Bell employees themselves. This episode were diving in to the early history of phreaking, how a bag of tricks was developed, and why exploring the phone grid was so much fun.   Selected sources:   http://explodingthephone.com/ - Phil Lapsley's book and website of the same name   https://archive.org/details/belltelephonemag09amerrich/page/205/mode/2up - All about the Holmes Burglar Alarm system   http://explodingthephone.com/docs/dbx0947.pdf - FBI's records on Barclay and the Blue Box

When people talk about early computers Babbage's Analytical Engine is bound to come up. Designed back in the 1830's it's definitely older than any other example of the art. But it also has a lot of strikes against it. The machine was purely mechanical. It only really did math. It stored numbers in decimal instead of binary. Worst of all, it only ever existed as designs on paper. So should we call this beast a computer? Or is it something else entirely?   Selected Sources:   https://www.fourmilab.ch/babbage/sketch.html - Sketch of the Analytical Engine, and Lovelace's Notes   https://web.archive.org/web/20210226094829/http://athena.union.edu/~hemmendd/Courses/cs80/an-engine.pdf - Bromleys low level description of the engine   https://sci-hub.se/10.1007/978-3-642-61812-3_2 - On the Mathematical Powers of the Calculating Engine, by Charles Babbage   https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_Oi3IhTZyVCAC/mode/1up - The Ninth Bridgewater Treatise, Babbage

We're getting back to my hypertext series with a big of an obscure tale. ZOG is a hypertext system what was first developed in 1972 at Carnegie-Melon University. It then stagnated until the latter half of the 1970s when it was picked back up. By 1983 it was cruising on a US Navy aircraft carrier. ZOG presents a hypertext system with some very modern notions. But here's the part that gets me excited: ZOG was developed after Doug Engelbart's Mother of All Demos. So, in theory, ZOG should take ques from this seminal event. Right? ... right?   Selected sources:   https://www.campwoodsw.com/mentorwizard/PROMISHistory.pdf - History of PROMIS   https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA049512.pdf - 1977 ZOG Report   https://apps.dtic.mil/docs/citations/ADA158084 - 1984 USS Carl Vinson Report