Creatures of Thought

The arrival of the IBM PC was the most significant event in the history of the personal computer since the arrival of the Altair.

In the early 1980s, the personal computer market was a raucous bazaar, teeming with variety.

In memory of Clement J.

By early 1980, the Apple II, which had trailed the Commodore PET and Tandy/Radio Shack TRS-80 at first, had become a remarkable success, with a great deal of help from Personal Software’s VisiCalc.

In 1979, Atari and Texas Instruments (TI) established a new category of computer, which hybridized the features of the personal computer and video game console.

It’s difficult to say with certainty what the most popular titles or genres were in the early years of computer games.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, one could participate in a variety of (mostly novel) hobbies that all asked “what-if”: reading and watching science fiction (especially Star Trek), reading the writings of Tolkien and his growing body of imitators, playi…

Author’s note: I originally intended for this post to cover adventure games, computer role-playing games, wargames and other simulations, a brief look at the home video game market, and finally the rise of hybrids that fused home video game systems with p…

To market their new products to people who had not already spent years pining for a computer of their own, the creators of the second wave of microcomputers had to face head on the question of what the microcomputer was actually good for.

In 1977, three new microcomputers appeared on the scene that broke free from the industry’s hobbyist roots: the Apple II, the Commodore PET, and the Tandy/Radio Shack TRS-80.

[This post is part of “A Bicycle for the Mind.”

[This post is part of “A Bicycle for the Mind.”

[This post is part of “A Bicycle for the Mind.”

In 1974, Ted Nelson self-published a very unusual book.

In 1965, Patrick Haggerty, president of Texas Instruments (TI), wanted to make a new bet on the future of electronics.

“When man created the bicycle, he created a tool that amplified an inherent ability.

In the year 1900, automobile sales in the United States were divided almost evenly among three types of vehicles: automakers sold about 1,000 cars powered by internal combustion engines, but over 1,600 powered by steam engines, and almost as many by batte…

In the mid-nineteenth century, a new industry emerged, based on the refining of petroleum.

Here in the early decades of the twenty-first century, steam turbines can still be found (though they are almost never seen) but steam piston engines are archaic relics.

Incandescent electric light did not immediately snuff out all of its rivals: the gas industry fought back with its own incandescent mantle (which used the heat of the gas to induce a glow in another material) and the arc lighting manufacturers with a glas…