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Society & Culture

Advent of Computing

Sean S Haas

Welcome to Advent of Computing, the show that talks about the shocking, intriguing, and all too often relevant history of computing. A lot of little things we take for granted today have ric...

Advent of Computing Podcast Guide

Listen to Advent of Computing, a Society & Culture podcast by Sean S Haas. Stream 202 episodes in English, follow new audio stories, and play episodes online on Radio and Podcast.

Show Topic

Browse this show under Society & Culture podcasts.

Episodes

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Episodes

20 of 202 episodes

Dale Biagio - Hello, World!

Dale Biagio(author of Hello, World!) got in touch with me recently. He said he had a book full of short histories of programming languages....

31:44Jun 14, 2026

Episode 183 - A Digital Gap?

I've been browsing old compur surveys and trying to build up a comprehensive data set. What I've found is a little surprising: between late...

54:58May 31, 2026

Episode 182 - Spinning Memories

What connects IBM, the NSA, the Third Reich, and high fidelity recordings of symphonies? The answer is: magnetic drum memory. Join me as I l...

58:31May 18, 2026

Episode 181 - RAYDAC

In 1947 Raytheon signed a contract to make their first computer. It would be their last... at least for many many years. The fruits of this...

01:12:18May 3, 2026

Episode 179 - Programming Block by Block

In which we discuss GPSS: the General Purpose Simulation Language. As for as languages go, this is a unique one. It's designed for certain t...

01:01:59Apr 4, 2026

Episode 178 - The Programma 101

The Olivetti Programma 101 isn't quite like any other machine. On first glance it looks like a big desktop calculator. Inside, it's a purebr...

01:02:46Mar 22, 2026

Dan Temkin - Forty-Four Esolangs

Dan Temkin has been a long time friend of the show. I finally got the chance to sit down and talk with him about one of his latest projects....

51:59Mar 9, 2026

Episode 177 - Getting Real with RSX

Who wants to hear me make incorrect assumptions about old software? RSX is a system that, from the outside, can sound like it has a similar...

57:49Feb 23, 2026

Episode 176 - Is That Even UNIX?

UNIX is beloved by many. It's the classic minicomputer operating system. It's big, it's powerful, it's multitasking, and it has some very sp...

01:02:22Feb 9, 2026

Episode 175 - SNOBOL? That's Disgusting!

Today we are talking about one of the most unique languages I've ever come across. SNOBOL emerges from the early days of programming. It's f...

01:05:59Jan 28, 2026

Episode 174 - The Bell Model I

We are getting back to the actual digital family tree. In 1937 George Stibitz built a tiny binary adding circuit on his kitchen table using...

01:02:50Jan 12, 2026

Episode 173 - Hybrid Programming

Hybrid computers are composed of a digital computer linked to an analog computer. That leads to an interesting challenge: how do you write s...

01:02:59Dec 29, 2025

Episode 172 - Analog/Hybrid

In 1945 the first electronic digital computers sparked to life. Number crunching was instantly changed forever! The perfect technology had a...

01:05:04Dec 15, 2025

Episode 171 - What Is a 4GL?

Last episode I said that Fourth Generation Languages were a topic for another time. Well... this counts as another time. Today we are trying...

54:42Nov 24, 2025

Episode 170 - Thoroughbred/OS

I'm back to normal episodes, and I'm running out the gate with a weird one. Thoroughbred/OS was a multi-user and multi-tasking operating sys...

01:00:00Nov 10, 2025

Episode 169 - Dellinger's Viruses

In 1981 Joe Dellinger attempted to create the perfect computer program: a virus that spread silently. In 1982 a revision of that virus broke...

26:10Oct 26, 2025