As of today, I have posted a Retro Scan of the Week every Monday for five years. That’s 263 entries total — each post containing at least one scan of something deliciously vintage for you and yours to enjoy.

But wait a minute. Let’s back up a bit to the “every Monday for five years” part. I can’t quite believe that. Have I really been doing these scans for five years? Every single week? Dear God. As crazy as it sounds, the answer is yes.

I hear some of you chanting “speech,” (or maybe that’s just the audience of one inside by head) so I will say a few words of reflection.

[ Continue reading One Scan Per Week for Five Years » ]

The first version of the first web browser ever — Tim Berners-Lee’s WorldWideWeb — carried with it a date of 12/25/1990. That’s 20 years ago tomorrow.

Most people won’t notice this anniversary, however, because CERN decided to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the WWW last year. Why’d they do that? Well, 1989 is when Berners-Lee first conceived of the WWW and wrote about the idea in a document to his supervisor. 1990, however, is when the web actually went live. Happy 20th birthday, WWW!

I emailed Berners-Lee to ask him about the original release date of WorldWideWeb (a browser only available only for the NeXT platform, by the way), and he responded with the truth behind the Christmas release date:

I wrote the web browser between September and mid-November 1990. I had to stop work because (a) CERN was closed for the Christmas break (around the 13th maybe) and (b) a first child was due Dec 24. So though the software version was wrapped some time well before Christmas. I labeled it version 901225 to be a memorable version number!

So there you have it from the inventor of the Web himself.

In honor of this occasion, I put together a slideshow of “Web Browsers Through the Ages” for PC World. I hope you enjoy it.

Five years ago today, I published my first post on Vintage Computing and Gaming.

The funny thing is that when I started this blog in 2005, I had no idea I would still be doing it five years later — or that it would become the nucleus of a career in writing. No idea.

It’s amazing how life can guide you in new and unexpected directions.

So what this anniversary really means that my career as a professional writer is now five years old. I’ve written for a dozen or so web and print publications over the last five years, and I still enjoy every minute of it.

[ Continue reading Five Years of VC&G » ]

I mentioned this last year, but I figure more people are using Twitter now. So if you want to Twitterize together, feel free to folllow @benjedwards. Help me build a massive, influential Twitter army through which I can disseminate my august opinions on technology, vintage computing, and Burt Reynolds. (Or at least help me eclipse 100 followers — that’s right, I said oooone hundred!) With numbers like that, we could organize some crazy flash mobs.

Jason Scott is a singular fellow. He’s the man behind the BBS Documentary, the upcoming Get Lamp documentary (on text adventure games), and creator of textfiles.com. He also spearheaded a recent attempt to archive all of Geocities before Yahoo took it down recently.

This fellow historian, friend of VC&G, and archivist extraordinaire recently lost his long-time job as a system administrator. Like many who have found themselves unemployed recently, the situation inspired a little soul-searching from Scott, who realized his stressful years as a system administrator had worn down his health.

Something important dawned on him: he already spent so much of his spare time and money on his main passion — preserving and documenting computer history — why not try to do that full time?

That’s where the Jason Scott Sabbatical fund at Kickstarter.com comes in. Scott is seeking donations from people around to globe to fund a 3-4 month sabbatical wherein he can focus on his history and archiving work full time. So far, hundreds of people have chipped in (including myself), but he still needs more donations to push him over top of the hill.

I can honestly say there’s no one else out there like Jason Scott, and we will likely never see another single individual so fiercely (and I mean fiercely) dedicated to preserving the overlooked backwaters and forgotten alleys of our digital history. Scott’s goal is a worthy one, and he does monumentally important work that future historians will thank him for.

This sabbatical concept via Kickstarter is a somewhat radical idea, I know. Some of you will have doubts about it — for example, if he will spend the money properly. But I don’t fear that outcome: that’s for Jason Scott to sort out, and for his own conscience to live with.

If you contribute a modest amount, you have little to lose. If he blows the cash, so what? But if you contribute and Scott does what he promises to do, I predict that history will have a lot to gain — not only in terms of added, productive years on Jason Scott’s life, but in countless terabytes of priceless historical data that will serve as the foundation of our ancestors’ understanding of the past.

As a historian, I need Jason Scott to continue his work. As a human with a responsibility to the legacy of your species, you need Jason Scott to do his work. Please consider helping him out.

Four years ago today, I posted my first (somewhat awkward) entry on this blog. I was new to blogging then. Heck, blogging was new to blogging then. Or at least it feels that way to me now.

I was by no means an early adopter of blogging in general, but quite a bit has changed in the “blogosphere” (I die a little every time I say that term) over the last four years — years that have seen a choice few video game and gadget blogs consolidate power with very influential voices in their respective communities. They’ve gone from sloppy wannabe video game/gadget press to actually absorbing, replacing, and becoming the video game/gadget press in some respects as traditional print magazines continue to fall by the wayside.

Where’s VC&G in all this? Heh, I don’t know. We’re no powerhouse, but we (I say “we” in the most singular sense of the word) have an impressive Google footprint in the video game and computer history realm. It’s a bizarre feeling when I’m researching my freelance articles and I come across multiple links to VC&G posts or images from Retro Scan of the Week on every Google results page. I have to avoid quoting myself.

At the end of the day, Vintage Computing and Gaming is still an enthusiast blog that’s not updated very frequently (since 2007 or so). But at least we’re still here after four years. That’s a long time to consistently maintain any blog, and I’m proud of that much.

I like the stability and consistency that VC&G provides in my writing life, and my regular readers (that’s you) feel like old buddies to me now. Thanks for continuing to humor me in moments both odd and insightful.

On another note, I honestly never thought I’d keep the same theme and site design for this long. Back in 2005, I used to plan site redesigns for my websites every few years, but this layout served the blog so well that I just said, “What the heck. If it works, keep it.”

And now, some statistics. There are currently 491 posts and 5,165 comments on VC&G. That’s an average of 3.5 comments a day since November 2nd, 2005, and a whopping 10.5 per post. Not too shabby. Keep it up!

Discussion Topic of the Year: Share your favorite VC&G moments. If you had no nominate a post or two for a hypothetical “Best of VC&G,” what would they be?

[Editor’s Note: This was part of an April Fools gag. Ulaf is still not amused.]

HELLO AGAIN VINTAGE SUPERFANS. RECENTLY, THE BENJ DECIDES TO HAND ULAF THE RAINS OF THESE BLOG POST. SO ULAF CONVERT SITE TO THE FAVORITES OF ALL THE WORLD’S KRELZ, GARDENSING. AND HENCE: VINTAGE COMPUTING AND GARDENSING.

TO STARTS US OFF, MY MIND WILL SHARE WITH YOU EASY THREE TIPS TO THE BETTER GARDENSING.

NUMBERS 1:
DO NOT EAT THE VEGTABLES BEFORE THE GROWING.

NUMBERS 2:
THE DIRT IS NOT FOR THE EATING, BUT FOR THE GROWING.

NUMBERS 3:
THE WORMS ARE FOR THE GROWING, AND THE EATING IF YOUR MIND LACK EXCELLENT NUTRIMENT.

THAT IS ALL FOR NOW. STAY TUNES FOR MORE GARDENSING TIPS AND TRICKSTERS FROM THE WHIRL OF ULAF.

FOR COMPUING AND GAMINGS TIPS, CONSULT HOW TO BEAT THE VIDEO GAMES, THE ULAF CLASSIC. SOON ULAF WRITES “HOW TO BEAT THE VEGETABLES” FOR YOUR MIND TO CONSUME. UNTIL NEXT TIME THIS IS ULAF SAYING BE THE MASTER.

ULAF FANS UNITE! READS ULAF ON THE TWEETER: @ulafsilchov

[ Continue reading ULAF’S GARDENING TIPS » ]

https://twitter.com/benjedwards

I’ve got good news for those of you who previously wanted to register an account in the VC&G Discussion Forums but couldn’t: the forums are open once again for new member registration.

Registration has been closed for a while because of a recent influx of spambots. But thanks to a couple new anti-spam measures I put in place, I can finally re-open the forum to new members. Sorry it took so long — hopefully the new spambot-deterrents will hold up. If not, we also have moderators on hand to chase the evil spambots away.

In case you were wondering, the computer mouse turned 40 today.

… or, at least, that’s what everybody is saying, despite the fact that Douglas Engelbart cobbled together his first mouse in 1963 (which would make the mouse something more like 45). But ah, the vagaries of media semantics — somebody toots their horn and then everybody has to jump on board.

Despite the numbers game, this date is indeed a special anniversary, because 40 years ago today, Douglas Engelbart presented “the mother of all demos” at the Fall Joint Computer Conference in San Francisco. This event was notable, among other reasons, for being the first time the public laid eyes on the computer mouse.

By now, you’re probably saying, “That’s great Benj, but I’m suspicious that you actually posted something on VC&G! Where do you and your professional career fit into this?” Well, I’m getting to that. In honor of this anniversary, Macworld asked me to write a short piece on the history of the mouse. After deliberating with myself for about 30 seconds, I accepted the assignment.

Over the next few days, I managed to assemble a comprehensive timeline that traces the mouse’s technical evolution through the years. Unsurprisingly, you can find it on Macworld.com. Feel free to check it out if you’re interested, and tell them Benj sent ya. Even if you don’t check it out, remember to stare extra hard at your mouse today and contemplate its origins in the vast foggy distance of time.