I was looking at the page telling you about Moving to Python from other languages and it referenced “comp.lang.python” without any explanation of what it was. That took me back. It is referring to a Usenet News Group. They were the first social media dating back to the 1980s. This was before Facebook, before Reddit, before online forums, before the World Wide Web. I thought they were long gone. But no – they are still alive and well.
(more…)Posts Tagged ‘History’
Remember Usenet?
Posted in History, Technology, tagged History on December 11, 2023| Leave a Comment »
IT Pioneers: Charles Bachman – Database Pioneer
Posted in Database Management Systems, History, tagged CODASYL, Database, History, IT Pioneers, SQL on September 19, 2023| Leave a Comment »
If you are asked to name the most important pioneer in database development, the name Edgar Codd is probably the first name that comes to mind. He pioneered the concept of relational database. But another person deserves credit as well. Nearly a decade earlier Charles Bachman did fundamental work, developing the first database management system.
(more…)Betamax, ISO Networking, CP/M: When the “best” technology is not the best.
Posted in History, Technology, tagged betamax, cp/m, History, networking, osi, pc-dos, procurement, vhs on August 28, 2023| Leave a Comment »
You are in a pub and you hear someone say “that is Betamax vs VHS all over again”. What is that about? It is an interesting story which might effect your next career move, so listen up.
(more…)IT Pioneers: Structured Design (circa 1974) – the cornerstone of modern coding practice
Posted in IT Pioneers, Still-coding, tagged Coding, History, IT Pioneers, PL/1, Structured design on August 5, 2023| Leave a Comment »
I learned to code in 1963. Things were different then.
There were some obvious things, like 24 hour turnarounds on tests, and storing code on paper tape. Oh – and the computer had about .000000001 of the processor speed on my watch, but at the time we thought it was pretty cool.
I am beginning to sound like one of the four yorkshiremen so I will move on. I want to talk about the pioneers of structured programming and structured design,
(more…)IT Pioneers: Hats off to Gary Kildall (who?)
Posted in History, IT Pioneers, Technology, tagged apple, cp/m, Gary Kildall, History, IT Pioneers, micro computers, superbrain, visicalc on June 25, 2023| 1 Comment »
I started coding in then 1960’s on a Ferranti Mercury. It was as big as a house and had less computer power than my watch. But at the time we thought it was pretty cool. Over the years, Moor’s Law turned out to be pretty accurate. The most powerful computers doubled in power about every two years. Commercial systems got smaller. From as big as a house, to the size of a room, to the size of a desk, then a largeish box in a rack.
But in the mid 1970’s something happened off the Moore’s Law track. They managed to fit all the components of a low-power computer on a single chip. They were mass produced and relatively cheap. The engineers that built it had in mind using them for process control, calculators or computer terminals.
Enter Gary Kildall
But a genius called Gary Kildall saw another potential use for these devices.
(more…)I like what they did to my site
Posted in Fintech, History, tagged Fintech, History on May 18, 2023| Leave a Comment »
I recently went back to one of my old projects to see how it is working out. And it is looking great. It started as a quick demonstration site and now it is an important resource for the FinTech industry.
(more…)Way back when : The Ferranti Mercury in the swinging 60’s
Posted in History, tagged History on December 11, 2022| Leave a Comment »
I learned my software skills on the Ferranti Mercury computer. It had as I recall 468 words of memory (a word is about 6 bytes so call it 3k bytes). Let’s see, my phone has 8,000,000,000 bytes – that’s about 2.5 million times more. My phone makes the 1500 instructions per second look pretty silly as well.
The computer was big. The electronics used valves and they get hot. So each cabinet has a refrigerating unit built-in, and they were noisy.
(more…)
Bob Browning's blog 