hardware · Essay
Beige was a decision
A West German workplace standard told display makers to avoid very dark and very light surfaces, and the office computer was built to fit between the two numbers.
Plate 06
hardware
Every indicator lamp was a wire
The Altair's front panel showed the bus directly. Keeping one camera light that honest now takes dedicated silicon.
interfaces
The error message was a paragraph
IBM's reference manual for the 29 Card Punch lists everything the machine could not yet do for itself, one instruction to the operator at a time.
software
Autocomplete began as a card sorter
Every suggestion box walks down a set of pockets that Hollerith's clerks were filling by hand in 1890.
interfaces
Why the terminal is still green
P1 phosphor was chosen for persistence, not beauty. We kept the colour after the reason expired.
hardware
The chair that was also a supercomputer
Seymour Cray's fastest machine was shaped by the speed of electricity and the temperature of freon. Everything people remember about it was a consequence.
NotesAll notes →
2026.08.29
A datacenter is a mainframe with worse posture.
2026.08.26
Found a 1971 operator’s manual that describes push notifications, in different words.