All about the IBM 1130 Computing System

http://ibm1130.org/

#HackerNews #IBM1130 #ComputingHistory #RetroComputing #TechHistory #ComputerScience

The Story of vi

“I’m still using vi because I can’t escape it."

vi was created in 1976 by Bill Joy while he was a graduate student at UC Berkeley. At the time most people used line based editors like ed and ex. These editors were powerful but difficult to use because you could not see the surrounding text while editing. Bill Joy wanted a full screen visual editor that would let users move around and edit interactively.

He originally wrote vi as a visual mode for the ex editor rather than as a completely separate program. When people type vi on many systems today they are actually running ex in visual mode. His goal was to make text editing faster and more intuitive on the hardware available at the time.

One important detail is the terminal Bill Joy used while developing vi. He worked on a Lear Siegler ADM 3A terminal. This keyboard had the Escape key where the Tab key is located on modern keyboards and it had no arrow keys. Because of this layout Bill Joy designed vi to rely heavily on the Escape key and the hjkl keys for movement. These design choices are still used in vi and vim today.

vi quickly became popular because it was fast and worked well over slow network connections. vi became the standard text editor on almost every Unix and Linux system. System administrators and developers learned it because it was almost always available.

vi also played a major role in starting one of the longest running debates in computing history known as the editor wars between vi and Emacs. vi users generally value speed and staying on the home row while Emacs users value its high level of customization. This rivalry has continued for decades.

Although the original vi is quite old its influence remains strong. Even today if you log into a minimal Linux server vi or vim is often the only text editor available by default.

#OpenSourceHistory #ComputingHistory #vi #vim #TechHistory #TextEditor #EditorWars #UnixHistory #linux

21 years and counting of 'eight fallacies of distributed computing' (2025)

https://blog.apnic.net/2025/12/08/21-years-and-counting-of-eight-fallacies-of-distributed-computing/

#HackerNews #eightfallacies #distributedcomputing #computinghistory #techinsights #softwareengineering

"However, while BINAC was never fully functional, the Australian machine was so well-designed and constructed that it went on to have a working life of 15 years – well into the time of transistorised computers. So, Australia had the fourth stored-program computer."

#Computing #Computinghistory

https://ia.acs.org.au/article/2017/piece-of-australian-computing-history.html

I remember doodling with one of these flowchart templates when I was a kid (I think it was my mother's, from a COBOL course she took in college), and it never crossed my mind that IBM would have a whole *manual* about it, but of course they do.

And conveniently @bitsavers has a scanned copy online:

https://bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/generalInfo/C20-8152_Flowcharting_Techniques.pdf

Photo of the template from the Smithsonian, CC0.

#ComputingHistory #FlowCharting #IBM

On this day in 1972, the patent for the floppy disk was granted. So happy floppy disk day, again, kind of 🥳😎

#floppydisk #floppydisks #diskette #vintagecomputing #retrocomputing #computinghistory

https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/storage/the-floppy-disk-patent-was-granted-today-in-1972-when-80kb-took-up-8-inches-and-were-really-floppy

The Virtual OS Museum opens its doors: A massive compilation of historic OSes and the emulators to run them (The Register)

https://www.theregister.com/oses/2026/05/23/the-virtual-os-museum-opens-its-doors/5243459

#OperatingSystems #OS #computing #computinghistory #vintagecomputing #retrocomputing #retrocomputer #emulation #technews #tech #nostalgia #museum