Dan Bricklin, father of the spreadsheet, discovers VisiCalc running in a JavaScript emulator of an IBM PC 5150. [more inside]
posted by backseatpilot on Nov 19, 2012 - 34 comments

NASA will send you an email or text alert when the International Space Station is visible from your area. IBM scientists have recently made significant advances in nanotechnology. A mathematician thought a poorly-encrypted headhunting email from Google was testing him, but he had actually discovered a major security hole. All of this found via The Brief: A Daily Briefing of Technology News Worth Caring About from MeFi's own nostrich. [via mefi projects]
posted by davidjmcgee on Nov 9, 2012 - 15 comments

25 years ago today, IBM released it's next-generation operating system OS/2. It never took the world by storm as planned, but it also never really went away.

A look at OS/2: Beginnings - OS/2 1.0 - OS/2 1.1 - OS/2 1.2-1.3 (screenshots) - OS/2 2.0 (screenshots) - OS/2 Warp - OS/2 Warp 4 (screenshots) - eComstation
posted by dunkadunc on Apr 2, 2012 - 111 comments

"Researchers at I.B.M. have stored and retrieved digital 1s and 0s from an array of just 12 atoms, pushing the boundaries of the magnetic storage of information to the edge of what is possible." [NYT]
posted by BobbyVan on Jan 12, 2012 - 27 comments

In 1967, IBM had the answer to our "paperwork explosion." Somewhat surreal film promoting new IBM dictation technology. Mad Men meets the future with a trippy electronic soundtrack. [more inside]
posted by kinnakeet on Jun 24, 2011 - 41 comments

From the satisfying click of its keys to its no-nonsense layout and solid steel underpinnings, IBM's 24-year-old Model M is the standard by which all other keyboards must be judged. (previously)
posted by Joe Beese on Jun 22, 2009 - 106 comments

A Brief, Incomplete, and Mostly Wrong History of Programming Languages
posted by Artw on May 8, 2009 - 47 comments

IBM to give away 500 patents. Curiouser and curiouser. Why now? And, what patents? IBM makes a great deal of money licensing their patent portfolio - is this meant to stimulate additional licensing? How does this fit in with the open source movement? In other news, IBM just received the go-ahead to sell off their PC unit to a firm that just won a rather large contract to provide PCs in China.
posted by FormlessOne on Jan 11, 2005 - 18 comments

Lynn Conway is one of the major talents in the history of the development of computers, responsible for major advances without which computers we buy now would be much different. She's also a transsexual, born physically male. While working for IBM she had her sex-change operation, and IBM immediately fired her for it.
posted by Steven Den Beste on Dec 10, 2000 - 7 comments