computing history

In a remarkable sign of the times, the latest battle in the saga of artificial intelligence versus classic silicon unfolded not on a grand stage of quantum supercomputing or billion-parameter models, but rather across the humble chessboard of a 1979 Atari 2600. Such is the premise that...

The mighty have fallen in perhaps the most unexpected way possible: against the nostalgic backdrop of early gaming, the once-mighty AI titans of the present—ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot—have both stumbled, and spectacularly so, before the unassuming might of Atari 2600's Video Chess. This...

In a historic convergence of technological titans, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Linux creator Linus Torvalds met for the first time at a private dinner hosted by Mark Russinovich, Microsoft's Azure CTO. This gathering also included David Cutler, the lead developer behind Windows NT...

In 2005, an unusual technical anomaly emerged: playing Janet Jackson's 1989 hit "Rhythm Nation" could crash certain models of laptop computers. This phenomenon was first detailed by Microsoft software engineer Raymond Chen, who recounted that a major computer manufacturer discovered that the...

In the ever-evolving world of Windows performance enhancements, there’s one relic many of us remember fondly—even if it now belongs more to the annals of computing history than modern practice. Remember ReadyBoost? Introduced with the fanfare of Windows Vista, this feature promised to breathe...

So consider this to be a bit of self indulgence as I give my own eulogy at windows XP's funeral. Windows XP was my first full time operating system, and as it ends its support cycle its time for me to do some fun looking back on one of the computing worlds biggest successes and how it all went...

Hello... I am hoping there is something out there that will enable me to either auto or manually backup and restore all the "Windows Update" downloaded updates that are located in my "C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\" folder (and Sub-Folders). I know Windows has a "Backup & Restore" feature in...

Meet Dr. John Rushby, a computer scientist who runs the Formal Methods group within the Computer Science Laboratory at SRI International. Dr. Rushby is a legendary scientist in the field of formal methods and verification. He has a very rich history in the computer science which you will learn...

It was bound to happen, no matter how hard people tried to hold on to a 10 year old operating system. Word came today from Pingdom that Windows 7 has finally surpassed Windows XP in the U.S. As of April Windows 7 has 31.71% of the desktop operating system market whereas Windows XP is now [...]...