I joined How-To Geek in February 2020, and I’ve been regularly writing tech history-related features in addition to my usual how-to pieces. At the moment, they’re usually published every Monday or on special anniversaries.

Since my first post and second post detailing my history-related How-To Geek articles, I’ve written 46 more pieces that may be of interest to VC&G readers (bringing the total to 66, I think). Man, I’ve been busy! This is the kind of writing I always wanted to do for Vintage Computing and Gaming if my Patreon had ever been fully funded. Luckily, I’ve got a great thing going at How-To Geek.

I realize this list is almost incomprehensibly long, so I’ll try to break it into categories. I also wanted to have a record of all of them in one place, which will help when referring to them in the future.

Benj’s Recent History Articles Sorted by Category

Online History

• Why 2020 Is the Perfect Time to Revisit IRC
• Remember BBSes? Here’s How You Can Visit One Today
• Remembering GeoCities, the 1990s Precursor to Social Media
• 7 Nostalgic Halloween Websites from the ’90s and 2000s

Tech Explainers

• The History of Caps Lock: Why Does the Caps Lock Key Exist?
• Why Did ’90s PCs Have Keyhole Locks, and What Did They Do?
• Why Do Keyboards Have a Windows Key? Here’s Where It Started
• Where Did the Numeric Keypads on PC Keyboards Come From?
• What Does “Burning a CD” Mean?
• What Is a CRT, and Why Don’t We Use Them Anymore?
• What Is a “Computer Bug,” and Where Did the Term Come From?
• What Are Teletypes, and Why Were They Used with Computers?
• What Is Shareware, and Why Was It So Popular in the 1990s?

Historic OS Explainers

• What Was IBM’s OS/2, and Why Did It Lose to Windows?
• What Was BeOS, and Why Did People Love It?
• What Was NeXTSTEP, and Why Did People Love It?
• What Was CP/M, and Why Did It Lose to MS-DOS?

Gaming

• 30 Years of ‘Minesweeper’ (Sudoku with Explosions)
• 5 Creepy Retro PC Games to Play This Halloween
• What Was the “Game Genie” Cheat Device, and How Did It Work?
• 30 Years of Vorticons: How Commander Keen Changed PC Gaming
• From Keen to Doom: id Software’s Founders Talk 30 Years of Gaming History
• Did You Know? The GPS Triangle Cursor Comes From Atari’s Asteroids
• Before Fortnite, There Was ZZT: Meet Epic’s First Game
• Why Were Old Video Games So Pixelated?
• How Quake Shook the World: Quake Turns 25

Microsoft / Windows

• Windows 95 Turns 25: When Windows Went Mainstream
• What Was Windows CE, and Why Did People Use It?
• 35 Years of Microsoft Windows: Remembering Windows 1.0
• Dogs, Dinosaurs, and Wine: The Lost CD-ROMs of Microsoft
• The 10 Greatest Versions of Windows, Ranked
• How to Run Windows 3’s File Manager in Windows 10
• The 6 Worst Versions of Windows, Ranked
• Did You Know? Microsoft Made a Kids’ Word Processor in the 1990s
• A Visual History of Windows Icons: From Windows 1 to 11
• How to Install Windows 3.1 on an iPad

Apple  / Mac

• 20 Years Later: How the Mac OS X Public Beta Saved the Mac
• Macintosh System 1: What Was Apple’s Mac OS 1.0 Like?

Anniversaries

• 25 Years of Making Connections With USB (After Three Attempts)
• The First PC to Sell Millions: Commodore VIC-20 Turns 40
• A Successful Failure: The TI-99/4A Turns 40
• From Idea to Icon: 50 Years of the Floppy Disk
• Why Do Mice Have Scroll Wheels? Microsoft Intellimouse Turns 25

Miscellaneous

• A Vintage Atari Is an Amazing Weather Terminal in 2020
• What’s The Best Way to Buy a Vintage Computer?
• How “The Print Shop” Turned People into Banner Wizards in the 1980s

The Raw Chronological List

Here are my 46 latest How-To Geek history articles sorted from oldest to newest (August 8, 2020 to July 22, 2021):

• The History of Caps Lock: Why Does the Caps Lock Key Exist?
• Why 2020 Is the Perfect Time to Revisit IRC
• Windows 95 Turns 25: When Windows Went Mainstream
• Remember BBSes? Here’s How You Can Visit One Today
• 20 Years Later: How the Mac OS X Public Beta Saved the Mac
• What Was IBM’s OS/2, and Why Did It Lose to Windows?
• Remembering GeoCities, the 1990s Precursor to Social Media
• 30 Years of ‘Minesweeper’ (Sudoku with Explosions)
• 5 Creepy Retro PC Games to Play This Halloween
• What Was BeOS, and Why Did People Love It?
• 7 Nostalgic Halloween Websites from the ’90s and 2000s
• A Vintage Atari Is an Amazing Weather Terminal in 2020
• Before Mac OS X: What Was NeXTSTEP, and Why Did People Love It?
• Why Did ’90s PCs Have Keyhole Locks, and What Did They Do?
• 35 Years of Microsoft Windows: Remembering Windows 1.0
• Why Do Keyboards Have a Windows Key? Here’s Where It Started
• 30 Years of Vorticons: How Commander Keen Changed PC Gaming
• What Was the “Game Genie” Cheat Device, and How Did It Work?
• 25 Years of Making Connections With USB (After Three Attempts)
• What Was Windows CE, and Why Did People Use It?
• From Keen to Doom: id Software’s Founders Talk 30 Years of Gaming History
• Did You Know? The GPS Triangle Cursor Comes From Atari’s Asteroids
• Where Did the Numeric Keypads on PC Keyboards Come From?
• Before Fortnite, There Was ZZT: Meet Epic’s First Game
• Why Were Old Video Games So Pixelated?
• Dogs, Dinosaurs, and Wine: The Lost CD-ROMs of Microsoft
• The 10 Greatest Versions of Windows, Ranked
• What Was CP/M, and Why Did It Lose to MS-DOS?
• What’s the Best Way to Buy a Vintage Computer?
• How to Run Windows 3’s File Manager in Windows 10
• The 6 Worst Versions of Windows, Ranked
• What Does “Burning a CD” Mean?
• What Is a CRT, and Why Don’t We Use Them Anymore?
• Did You Know? Microsoft Made a Kids’ Word Processor in the 1990s
• The First PC to Sell Millions: Commodore VIC-20 Turns 40
• What Is a “Computer Bug,” and Where Did the Term Come From?
• What Are Teletypes, and Why Were They Used with Computers?
• What Is Shareware, and Why Was It So Popular in the 1990s?
• Macintosh System 1: What Was Apple’s Mac OS 1.0 Like?
• A Successful Failure: The TI-99/4A Turns 40
• A Visual History of Windows Icons: From Windows 1 to 11
• How Quake Shook the World: Quake Turns 25
• How “The Print Shop” Turned People into Banner Wizards in the 1980s
• How to Install Windows 3.1 on an iPad
• From Idea to Icon: 50 Years of the Floppy Disk
• Why Do Mice Have Scroll Wheels? Microsoft Intellimouse Turns 25

Phew. That’s a lot. Hope you enjoy reading them! Keep an eye on my How-To Geek author page for even more in the future.

Tags: anniversaries, Features, History Articles, How-To Geek

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 22nd, 2021 at 10:13 am and is filed under BBS History, Collecting, Computer Games, Computer History, Everything Else, Gaming History, Internet History, Macintosh, News & Current Events, Retrogaming, Technology Commentary, VC&G Announcements, Vintage Computing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.