The History of Computing Project is a collaborative effort to record and publish the history of the computer and its roots. The site includes a chronological timeline, biographies of computing pioneers, a look at computing hardware through the years, as well as software and games.
posted on May 9, 2008 - View this thread

An Untitled Story. (apologies, pc download only). An action-platformer by Matt Thorson in the tradition of Seiklus, Knytt (previously 1 2), & Metroid It is full of awesome.
posted on Apr 14, 2008 - View this thread

Total Annihilation, released over ten years ago by the now defunct Cavedog Entertainment, was one of the most popular RTS games of its day. And it is still being played today, partly due to the mod community who have been working on keeping it alive through the release of patches, units and maps, a list of which you'll find inside.
posted on Apr 7, 2008 - View this thread

What's better than a wifi-equipped Asus Eee sub-notebook PC with touchscreen? Simple. An Asus Eee sub-notebook PC with touchscreen and 3G HSDPA modem. Still want more? How about an upgrade of on-board storage — from 4 gigabytes to 20gb? And if you're planning on overwriting the Eee's Xandros/pre-installed Linux distribution in the first place (in order to install a non open-source platform) you may want to consider making a complete switch-over and being the first on your block with a (legally iffy) sub-notebook running Macintosh. Previously: 1, 2, 3.
posted on Jan 5, 2008 - View this thread

Chromatron 1, 2, 3 and 4 just became freeware. In these little standalone puzzle games for PC and Mac, you align splitters, benders, and mirrors to direct colored laserbeams into like-colored targets. Enjoyably difficult, and an example of great game design.
posted on Nov 28, 2007 - View this thread

After nine years of waiting, Blizzard has just announced Starcraft II. IGN is liveblogging the announcement from the Blizzard Worldwide Invitational in South Korea, where love for the original is so great it brings with it $100,000 tournaments, matches aired on television, and fatalities from over-playing.
posted on May 18, 2007 - View this thread

Hobo Expert, MeFite, Daily Show Resident Expert, and reluctant celebrity John Hodgman's recent appearance on This American Life is truly inspired stuff. "He tells the story of what happens when celebrity hunts you down and finds you...on your living room couch, pushing 40, and a couple sizes larger than you want to be." Apparently Bill Gates isn't a fan. His loss.
posted on Apr 25, 2007 - View this thread

Comedy duo, Ramenz (ラーメンズ), aka Kobayashi Kentaro and Katagiri Jin, also known as the Japanese versions of Mac and PC, have recently done a number of shorts collectively called "The Japanese Tradition." Apparently, these tongue-in-cheek pseudo-instructional vids about famous aspects of Japanese culture (Tea, Chopsticks, Sushi, Origami, Apology, Onigiri, and Relationships) have been fooling a lot of non-natives into thinking they are actual guides. (YouTube, each approx 4-6 min).
posted on Mar 29, 2007 - View this thread

Mac VS PC And this time PC is the cool guy and Mac is the stooge! Gems like "Mac works for PC", "PC gets the girl." and "Mac may be cool but PC has the money." (Quicktime links)
posted on Mar 3, 2007 - View this thread

With hundreds of die hard PS3 fans camped outside Metreon, site of the San Francisco Playstation store and home of the official US launch for the Playstation 3, PC Gamer magazine showed up and presented one die-hard PS3 fan with arguably the hardest choice he'll ever have to make; to give up the right to own (or be gifted) a Playstation 3 for the next three years in exchange for a free $7,500 custom-built Falcon PC and "a better gaming experience." Here's what happened and here's the signed contract.
posted on Nov 18, 2006 - View this thread

Zen Bondage (game, non-sexual, large download (~28 MB), Windows only) [more inside]
posted on May 1, 2006 - View this thread

Slips of the tongue are usually a result of the sound structure of an utterance. For example, saying 'Martin Luther Koong Junior', where the vowel in 'Koong' might be taken from either of the two flanking words. Freudian slips are much rarer. Why then, are these two people losing their jobs? [More inside]
posted on Mar 30, 2006 - View this thread

It turns out, in the PC game business, no copy protection doesn't mean everyone pirates your game. This makes some people angry. From the article:

"For example, we were quite disturbed to discover that the company that makes Starforce provided a working URL to a list of pirated GalCiv II torrents. I'm not sure whether what they did was illegal or not, but it's troubling nevertheless and was totally unnecessary."

via digg
posted on Mar 11, 2006 - View this thread

On January 19, 1986, the first PC virus — Brain — was detected. It was virtually harmless, and the Pakistani creators claim that it was only intended to protect their copyrights. (They did, after all, include their own address and phone number in the machine code.) In the past 20 years, though, both creating viruses and destroying them have become billion-dollar industries.
posted on Jan 19, 2006 - View this thread

Google and Wal-Mart to launch the Google Computer [GoogleFilter] - Rumor-merchants around the industry are abuzz with speculation that Google is about to launch a no-frills, $200 networked computer via (ahem) Wal-Mart. They will also announce Google Cubes, media and home automation control devices. Will this be a watershed event or an infamous folly? Film at 11.
posted on Jan 3, 2006 - View this thread

Having trouble with that new videogame you got for Christmas? Text-only walkthroughs don't do it for you? Then try Stuck Gamer. Video walkthroughs for a pretty good number of games. Including, thanks the Lords of Kobol, Ninja Gaiden.
posted on Dec 26, 2005 - View this thread

Stupid Computer Tricks. Photo array of one computer service employee's favorite customer problems. Don't miss the intense AOL user, the sealed floppy, the floating hard drive, and the extreme case mod.
posted on Dec 9, 2005 - View this thread

It is with great regret that we place our PC Collection up for purchase. We being The Freeman PC Museum, not to be confused with any of these. Move over, leicester codex?
posted on Oct 14, 2005 - View this thread

More Mac Mockery

Simple short Switch parody ads from oldeenglish.org, both funny and unlikely to cause a PFM*.

*Platform Flame War
posted on May 24, 2005 - View this thread

What do you mean, I can't make my PC run completely silent?
posted on May 12, 2005 - View this thread

The end of an era confirmed. IBM sells its PC business to China's Lenovo. Is a future Apple partnership in the works?
posted on Dec 7, 2004 - View this thread

Copy your iPod contents to your PC! Mac users have been swearing by such products as iPodRip or iPod Access but now we in the majority can "backup" our tunes from our lil device onto our ibm-compatibles. take that shelbyville!
posted on Nov 15, 2004 - View this thread

Doom 3: It may possibly be the most pirated game in history.
posted on Aug 5, 2004 - View this thread

The John Markoff of the New York Times [registration required] reports that Google plans to roll-out a text and file search tool code-named Puffin for finding information stored on PCs. The move is seen as a defensive one; Microsoft plans to include PC searching in its new operating system, scheduled to be released in 2006 (at the earliest).
posted on May 19, 2004 - View this thread

PC Problems? Use this handy troubleshooter.
posted on Mar 20, 2004 - View this thread

You thought web standards were bad, how about PC, DVD and Recorder standards too? Well, the FCC has officially mandated that vendors making devices such as dvd players, recorders, pc's, must include (by July 1, 2005) copy-protection mechanisms which will prevent sharing of most digitally broadcast content. Broadcasters will have the option of adding a 'flag' to data streams which will prevent users from sharing digital content ala mp3's. Yes, there will be ways around this;yes, old systems will still work (maybe), but in the end, the FCC has just established a new technological standard which will end up in all of our new computers, dvd players, tivos, post 2005. Want to do something about it? Sorry. Too late.
posted on Nov 5, 2003 - View this thread

In their day, Trilobyte was at the height of the computer gaming world. Their first title, 7th Guest, made them an instant success, and their follow-ups, 11th Hour and Clandestiny, were equally well-received. But as the saying goes, the bigger they are, the harder they fall. Haunted Glory, from the GameSpot archives, documents the rise and fall of Trilobyte.
posted on Aug 7, 2003 - View this thread

A study posted at Adobe's website describes how traditionally Mac-centric tasks (rendering using After Effects, Illustrator & Photoshop) are all faster on a PC. These kinds of studies are a dime a dozen; what's interesting isn't which platform is faster, but that Adobe would host a page proclaiming the PC is the "preferred" platform for such tasks. Given the notoriously fickle folks at Quark, I would have pegged Adobe as the biggest Mac boosters in the third party software market. Are times changing?
posted on Mar 26, 2003 - View this thread

Is this the most non-PC TV show ever? As we become more and more desensitised to humour that makes fun of those less fortunate than ourselves, where do we draw the line?
posted on Feb 2, 2003 - View this thread

An article at robgalbraith.com , a digital photography site, has sparked a fascinating discussion of the merits of Macs vs. those of PC's, as they apply to digital photography. Actually, the article and discussion aren't terribly interesting, but the fact that the discussion is a mutually beneficial exchange of ideas and opinions and not a take-no-prisoners flamewar, is.
posted on Jan 13, 2003 - View this thread

Xupiter and other crap You geeks out there probably already know about the hell that is xupiter, and other parasite programs from Hades. I had to learn the hard way.
posted on Nov 30, 2002 - View this thread

Ages back there was a link, here at MeFi, to a project aimed at creating a DVD full of PC demos from back in the day. Well, they've finished. (They say if you pre-order now you'll get it in time for Christmas.)
posted on Nov 26, 2002 - View this thread

Using Internet Explorer, Outlook, or Outlook Express on a PC? There's a new hack in town, ready to exploit cross site scripts like nobody's business. Do yourself a favor and disarm ActiveX on your settings.
posted on Jul 12, 2002 - View this thread

Relive all your favorites from the demoscene. This project, headed up by nearly all of the team that maintained the old hornet.org demoscene archive, is committed to bringing those old classic demos ... to a DVD player near you. Now you no longer have to fret because you gave up your Gravis Ultrasound and DOS! Can I get a w00t from ya? I knew I could.
posted on May 14, 2002 - View this thread

Wal-Mart sells Windows-less PC's Did you know this? I didn't know this. Guess I'm gonna have to make Wal-Mart my one stop shop for guns AND computers. I guess I have to stop making fun of people who shop there. Definitely will have to lay off the redneck jokes. Is there such a thing as a redneck geek? Oh, wait, never mind.
posted on May 6, 2002 - View this thread

What happens when you combine an Atari 2600, an 8-bit NES, an X-Box, a PS2, a GameCube, and a PC?
posted on Apr 24, 2002 - View this thread

Best Case Ever. As in computer case, just in case you couldn't case it out. dig? anyways. like someone else said, this thing says 'geek pimp' all over it.
don't be a hater!
posted on Apr 23, 2002 - View this thread

PC users are eeeevil! Kind of amusing story from Wired about how an observant viewer of 24 noticed that the bad guys use PCs, while the good guys use Macs.
posted on Mar 3, 2002 - View this thread

Criticism Over WTC Statue Race Issues -- I'm sure many of you are familiar with a recent photo featuring three firefighters raising an American flag over the WTC rubble. Now a company has been commissioned to make a statue of the photo at FDNY Brooklyn Headquarters. In the statue though, the three white men who were originally depicted in the photo have been transformed into one white man, one black man, and one Hispanic man. There has been criticism over whether it is going to far to make these changes in order to be politically correct. Others are saying the statue should be more of a symbolic representation of all ethnicities that sacrificed themselves during this tragedy. What do you think?
posted on Jan 12, 2002 - View this thread

Sign of the Apocalypse: MTV Announces Line of PCs "Equipped With All the College Props" Uh, ...a beer funnel and a Dave Matthews cd? What else can we add to it? Is VH-1 going to do this?
posted on Jan 9, 2002 - View this thread

Say goodbye to Bleem. If you don't know, Bleem made emulator software that allowed you to play Playstation games on another console system or your PC. Their 'farewell' is kind of funny in a sad way.
posted on Dec 19, 2001 - View this thread

Fakeintosh - Have you ever wanted to run Mac OS 8 on your PC, but couldn't? Well now you can with this flash animation. I'm amazed at how detailed it is.
posted on Aug 23, 2001 - View this thread

H-h-hi, I'm J-jim Mc-C-c-clure. You may reme-me-member me from such c-c-conventions as....

uh...sorry, that was incredibly insensitive.

posted on Jul 3, 2001 - View this thread

Latest David Horowitz trolling op-ed piece, this time on gays in the military. With his usual obliviousness to irony, he presumes in this piece that anyone who disagrees with him must be the knee-jerk PC police. Question: does posting a link to a troll constitute trolling in and of itself? Discuss.
posted on Jun 25, 2001 - View this thread

From its origins as Stalinist rhetoric in the 30's, to ironic Left-wing jibe in the 70's, to Iconoclastic taunt in the 80's, to the Conservative pejorative of today, has the term Political Correctness had its day? It's probably just me but it seems to be used far more frequently by people who are in positions of power or by those more in tune with society's mainstream orthodoxy than by those who aren't. Of course, no one ever calls themselves politically correct. What do you think, what does the p.c. term mean to you?
posted on Jun 18, 2001 - View this thread

Anger Management Anyone? Turns out that old pc-rage video wasn't that far off the mark...
posted on Jun 7, 2001 - View this thread

New Bose radio hooks up to PC. I just saw their ad in wired and when to check the site. It had some popups so I turned webwasher off and reloaded the page. When I did, I was just redirected to a teaser. So I turned webwasher back on and was able to get to this site, which shows off a new radio that connects to the PC. The funny thing is to try going to http://wavepc.bose.com/ with and without webwasher yields different results.
posted on May 7, 2001 - View this thread

In what appears to be a suicide mission, Gateway announced it is backing away from lucrative services and software (which accounted for 100 percent of its fourth-quarter earnings) in favor of refocusing on computer sales, an area that recently has not made a dime for the company.
posted on Mar 5, 2001 - View this thread

Waah! I want my Barbie PC! (I don't quite understand this; can't someone just put their own decals on their computer? What, exactly was the market here? This one seems to go into the "unbelievably stupid product concept" file.)
posted on Dec 23, 2000 - View this thread

The US Government should buy it and make it a national monument. PARC up for sale? I didn't realize that Xerox was hurting so badly.
posted on Oct 19, 2000 - View this thread