HPR1664: Life and Times of a Geek part 1

Life and Times of a Geek - part 1

I really liked David Whitman's idea of doing a show on his birthday https://hackerpublicradio.org/eps.php?id=1547, so I'm borrowing the idea.

This show is being released on my 65th birthday, and I decided to use this opportunity to tell you about my long experience with computational devices as part of the series "How I Found Linux". Thinking about what I want to cover, I realise that it might be quite a lot, so I'm organising the shows into a collection of short episodes.

I have been thinking about doing this for a while. Up until now I was concerned that it would be a bit self-indulgent, but I have been advised to just go ahead and do it. I hope you find the shows interesting.

The full notes for this episode are to be found here: https://hackerpublicradio.org/eps/hpr1664_full_notes.html

Links

• Full notes https://hackerpublicradio.org/eps/hpr1664_full_notes.html
• Great Smog, Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog
• Slide Rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slide_rule
• Aberystwyth:
  • Town https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aberystwyth
  • Aberystwyth University https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aberystwyth_University
• Statistical tests:
  • Chi-square test https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chi-squared_test,
  • Student's t-test https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Student%27s_t-test
• Mechanical Calculator, Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_calculator
  • Triumphator https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2b/Calculator_triumphator_hg.jpg
• Algol 60:
  • Wikipedia entry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ALGOL_60
  • Revised Report on the Algorithmic Language Algol 60:
    • PDF version https://viega.org/cs6373/papers/algol60-revisedreport.pdf
    • HTML version https://www.masswerk.at/algol60/report.htm
• Stropping (Syntax) Wikipedia entry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stropping_%28syntax%29
• Elliott Brothers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliott_Brothers_%28computer_company%29
• Elliott Algol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliott_ALGOL
• Core memory https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/da/KL_CoreMemory.jpg
• The punched card era:
  • Wikipedia entry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_programming_in_the_punched_card_era

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