Mefi's own Jason Scott (jscott) wants to raise $25,000 using waxy's Kickstarter to work full-time on computer history. He made BBS documentary (previously), founded the Archive Team, and owns textfiles.com (previously) and, yes, sockington. So far, 237 people have pledged $20,340. On Nov. 4, Jason did a 5-hours, non-stop Scottathon. Apparently, fundraising ain't easy. [more inside]
posted by Monday, stony Monday on Nov 8, 2009 - 36 comments

Technology innovation will be a large part of late 20th century American history. Now the gearheads can explore the roots of all that geekdom. The Geek's Guide to Seattle is a virtual tour of some of the region’s most interesting and notable technology locations. A Geek's Tour of Silicon Valley hits hotspots there. Don't forget The Tech Museum and the Computer History Museum. Back east, there's Research Triangle Park (pdf) in North Carolina, and The Computing Revolution at the Museum of Science in Boston.
posted by netbros on Aug 28, 2009 - 8 comments

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

The first known recording of a digital computer playing music, recorded by the BBC in 1951. The music played on a Ferantti Mark 1, one of the first commercial general-use computers, and was entered via punchtape and played on a speaker usually used for making clicks and tones to indicate program progress.
posted by Artw on Jun 18, 2008 - 14 comments

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. [more inside]
posted by netbros on May 9, 2008 - 11 comments

During a January blizzard thirty years ago in Chicago, Ward Christensen and Randy Seuss came up with the idea for a computerized bulletin board system. One month later on February 16, 1978, the first public online community was officially established, and it was named CBBS. [more inside]
posted by SteveInMaine on Feb 16, 2008 - 26 comments

Triumph of the Nerds is a 1996 three-part documentary recounting the rise of the personal computer, including interviews with Gates, Wozniak and Jobs, among others. It was originally produced for British television, and aired on PBS in the USA. Part One: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Part Two: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Part Three: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Transcripts here. After you watch, you can play the "Guess the Computer" game.
posted by amyms on Sep 29, 2007 - 19 comments

Before RSS and personalized aggregators such as Personalized Google and NetVibes, there was CRAYON, a service that allowed you to "CReAte Your Own Newspaper" by providing a page with links to chosen sources. [mi]
posted by divabat on Mar 28, 2007 - 11 comments

The Red Hill Guide is an amazingly detailed and well-written compendium of desktop hardware old and new, with a focus on PC and x86 compatibles. Look for your first CPU, hard drive or mainboard.
posted by loquacious on Jan 6, 2007 - 40 comments

Interviews with some early computer people at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
posted by bigbigdog on Jan 1, 2007 - 5 comments

Apple Computer 1984 Newsweek Advertising Insert :: a complete scan of Apple's 16-page advertising insert in Newsweek magazine, introducing the new and revolutionary Macintosh computer.
posted by anastasiav on Apr 26, 2006 - 55 comments

Computer Networks: The Heralds of Resource Sharing (Google video) A fascinating 30 minute documentary about ARPAnet - the precursor to today's Internet. (Can you spot the real ubernerd mover and shaker at BBN? Hint: He wears no tie!) (via: all over the place)
posted by loquacious on Mar 19, 2006 - 30 comments

California Dreaming: A True Story of Computers, Drugs and Rock 'n' Roll (Reg. req'd) Engineers can be so cute. In the early 1960's, Myron Stolaroff, an employee of the tape recorder manufacturer Ampex, decided to prove the value of consuming LSD. So he set up the International Foundation for Advanced Study and went about his project in classic methodical fashion.

But John Markoff, a senior writer for The New York Times who covers technology, makes a convincing case that for the swarming ubergeeks assembling in the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1960's, approaching drugs as they might any other potentially helpful tool or device - from a soldering iron to a computer chip - was only natural. The goals were broad in the 60's: the world would be remade, the natural order of things reconfigured, human potential amplified to infinity. Anything that could help was to be cherished, studied and improved.

Judging by the record presented in What the Dormouse Said, it is indisputable that many of the engineers and programmers who contributed to the birth of personal computing were fans of LSD, draft resisters, commune sympathizers and, to put it bluntly, long-haired hippie freaks.
posted by gleenyc on May 7, 2005 - 32 comments

A clickable genealogy charting the lineage of visual interactive computing systems and user interfaces, by Bruce Damer. Some quirky/broken links, but plenty of interesting stuff there, too.
posted by carter on Mar 2, 2005 - 7 comments

"Puntate. Clic." 1000Bit archives images of vintage computer adverts, magazines, manuals, and brochures, many in Italian. Also of interest: old-computers.com, the Obselete Technology Web, Rune's PC-Museum, and Dave's Old Computers. [via]
posted by monju_bosatsu on Mar 1, 2005 - 10 comments

Geek History through T-Shirts. Shamelessly cribbed from memepool, who spotted a good one...
posted by tss on Dec 15, 2004 - 13 comments

The Computer History Museum is hosting this years Vintage Computer Festival in Mountain View, California. Featuring live demonstatrions of a Xerox Alto as well as an auction for a Commodore 64 prototype, this year promises to be fun for geeks of all ages. (via Wired)
posted by starscream on Oct 7, 2003 - 5 comments

Obsolete computers 1975-89. There's my first baby.
posted by MintSauce on Aug 22, 2003 - 51 comments

While there are a number of sites devoted to the history of computer and information technologies, their invention, design and manufacture is also a human story. So I'm glad that there are sites devoted to computing history and culture that also look at the lives of those involved. The Charles Babbage Institute and Center for the History of Information Technology, includes oral histories of engineers and 500 photographs of the Burroughs Corporation form the 1890s on. The Smithsonian Museum Division of Information Technology and Society is a gateway to a large number of 'real life' and online Smithsonian exhibitions related to the history of science and technology, including more oral histories and PDFs of the original DoD press releases for ENIAC. The Oxford University Virtual Museum of Computing includes tributes to information science pioneers, as well as much other stuff. Finally, the Silicon Valley Cultures Project is using anthropology to document the lives of many of those in the Valley.
posted by carter on Jun 22, 2003 - 6 comments

Newly Digital is an electronic anthology of sorts. Due to the technological advancement of these things we call "computers", it's a subject ripe for nostalgia. As seen here by bloggers writing about their first . . .
posted by jeremias on Jun 2, 2003 - 1 comment

The Computer Photography of Arthur Lavine. Got a reel-to-reel fetish? Does the phrase "hand assembled ferrite core memory" make you swoon? Take a look at some old-school nerds at work for Chase Manhattan, back in the days when computers were big and expensive, and a Macintosh was a raincoat. It's an exhibit at San Diego's Computer Museum of America, which is chock full of goodies. Check out the slide show exhibit too.
posted by condour75 on Nov 8, 2002 - 6 comments

www.computerhistory.org is the virtual incarnation of computer historian and collector Michael Williams' phat-ass computer museum. My favourite, BTW, is the timeline, searchable by year or topic. What technological milestones occured in the year of your birth?
posted by stuporJIX on Feb 15, 2002 - 8 comments

NYT celebrates 40 (or so) years of FORTRAN
The computer language that started it all is remembered in this breezy Times article (reg. req.'d.). [I think it has to do with some recent reunion of original team-members, but any contemporary event to rationalize printing this is buried in the copy.] Do something high-level with your computer today to commemorate. Here's an ibiblio.org text with more information.
posted by rschram on Jun 13, 2001 - 5 comments

Soviet Computer Technology circa 1988 (Google Cache).
posted by mutagen on Apr 22, 2001 - 7 comments

The Story of Mel - Almost everyone's seen the Story of Mel on USENET or via email... the story of the guy who wrote programs for a particular ancient drum computer by using the characteristics of the drum to handle memory allocation and time delays. In a footnote on the Jargon File, it seems that his last name is known... An interesting footnote to an interesting and probably true story.
posted by SpecialK on Apr 7, 2001 - 5 comments

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 by Steven Den Beste on Oct 19, 2000 - 4 comments

I never understood folks who were into this until I equated them with antique car collectors.
posted by Avogadro on Sep 14, 2000 - 11 comments