History of Computing
Starting to really appreciate the power of FPGA hardware emulation for the exploration, documentation and archival of old and sometimes long forgotten computer architectures and builds.
The history of computing is rich with stories and journeys and mistakes and lessons, but it feels like the majority of computer people have no interest in knowing the history of the very thing that has completely reshaped human society and I find that baffling. For example, a lot of the established norms and converged upon tools that we use today have not risen through by sheer superiority, in fact in most cases it was a matter of marketing/business/special interests that propelled certain technologies into the forefront and people are non the wiser.
It’s interesting to think about what our current model of computing would have been if the decisions were not taken by boards of directors and marketing teams.
There are many great ideas that have vanished in the sands of time for one non tech reason or another. Ideas that we should look back upon and reconsider and re-explore moving forward…
“Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it” - Churchill
Image attached is the MiSTer FPGA board running a Macintosh SE emulation running a system 7 OS displayed on a recycled 2010 macbook pro converted into an external monitor