NextStep: The Granddaddy of iOS
If you use any modern Apple product, you’re using a computer operating system invented in the late 1980s. Here’s the story of Steve Job’s NeXTSTEP operating system, and how a piece of software once...
Category: Tech History
Recollections of vintage computers and software
The Rise and Fall of OS/2
When IBM decided to get into the personal computer business, they knew they had to move quickly to get a foot in the door. Thus the makers of the original IBM PC worked outside...
Old Computer Hardware I Don’t Miss
I’ve been a computer nerd for most of my life, and while it’s easy to get nostalgic about vintage computers, it’s also good to remember just how far we’ve come. A few months ago,...
Windows XP: The OS That Refuses to Die
Microsoft is terminating support for Windows XP this spring, 13 years after the operating system first came out. To put that in perspective, it would be like MS-DOS 4.01 (released in 1988) still being...
PC/Computing Magazine
I was a pretty big nerd as a kid, to put it mildly. After getting a Tandy computer for my 10th birthday, I became a big computer geek throughout my teenage years. Some time...
Crappy Old Software
Having grown up with computers, I am nostalgic for the good old days of DOS and Windows and vintage Macs. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to use these kinds of vintage computers...
The Dvorak Keyboard
Have you ever wondered why the keys on your keyboard are arranged the way they are? Why do they start out with QWERTY instead of ABCDEF? Why aren’t the vowels grouped together? Believe it...
Siri Sucks!
A few weeks after the death of Steve Jobs, Apple came out with a new AI program called Siri. It was touted as the system’s killer app, but unfortunately, this voice recognition personal assistant...
Ode to the Start Menu
Microsoft has had many failures over the years, but they’ve also had a hell of a lot of successes. One of their biggest innovations has been the Start Menu. Anyone who’s used a PC...
Microsoft’s Biggest Failures
Last week, I highlighted Apple’s biggest failures. Now I want to move north to Redmond, Washington, to the other Titan of Technology, Microsoft. Like Apple, the company has had it’s share of fiascos. Let’s...
