A computer designed to be used with a mouse, keyboard, monitor, and printer could sound like any computer you've used, all made possible by a graphical user interface used on the Xerox Alto. Tom explores its history.

Featuring Tom Merritt.

Full episode transcript here.

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The way you interact with computers was probably shaped by a small team working at Xerox in the 1970s. Tom explains the history of Smalltalk.

Featuring Tom Merritt.

Full transcript here.

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From room-sized machines to barely an inconvenience on your desk, laser printers are in nearly every office. But where did they start? Tom explores the origins of the laser printer.

Featuring Tom Merritt.

Full transcript here.

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Computers talk to each other via networking, most commonly over a wired ethernet connection. Tom explains how that started and why it was such a breakthrough.

Featuring Tom Merritt.

Full transcript here.

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In 1969, the chief scientist at Xerox, Jack Goldman, decided to found a west-coast research center in Palo Alto, right down the road from Engelbart's SRI. Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center or PARC was far enough from headquarters in Rochester, New York, that scientists could feel a little freer to experiment.

Featuring Tom Merritt.

Full show transcription here.

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Tom explains what GPUs are, why they are different than CPUs, and how they kinda just evolved into a product.

Featuring Tom Merritt.

Full episode transcript here.

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Tom discusses the origin of the term "log in", it's early use, and how it became something most of us do every day.

Featuring Tom Merritt.

Full transcript can be found here.

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The last 120 years or so have seen tons of change for Korea, but what does the future hold? Tom shares what one heir is doing with their legacy.

Featuring Tom Merritt.

Episode transcript here.

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The predictive capabilities of ChatGPT and other programs based on Large Language Models really seem to infer an artificial intelligence. How do the applications work...and are they sentient? Tom explains why you shouldn't fear ChatGPT.

Featuring Tom Merritt.

Full transcript here.

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With all the talk about banning TikTok in the United States, Tom dives in to explain who actually owns and controls its parent company, ByteDance, and why there's so much discourse about security.

Featuring Tom Merritt.

Full transcript can be found here.

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What's really being celebrated on Black Friday and is it the biggest shopping day in the world?

Featuring Tom Merritt.

Full Episode Transcript here.

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The backbone of nearly every network you use on a daily basis is based on a system designed to be cheap and easy to implement.

Featuring Tom Merritt.

Full episode transcript here.

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What if you could have a secure password generated fresh each time you need it? Authenticator apps do just that. Tom explains how.

Featuring Tom Merritt.

Full episode transcript here.

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Douglas Engelbart demonstrated how two people connected over a network could work together editing a document at the same time in 1968. It took much longer to see a real product.

Featuring Tom Merritt.

Episode Transcript available here.

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Video conferencing was a vital method of communication during the COVID-19 pandemic, but it's roots go back much longer than you think.

Featuring Tom Merritt.

Full transcript here.

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How did RISC-V grab the attention of nearly every major tech company and what was the need for yet another computer processor architecture? Tom walks you through the history and use case of RISC-V.

Featuring Tom Merritt.

Full episode transcript found here.

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The Internet's directory was once a simple text file on a single computer but has evolved into many directories world-wide that enable the Internet as you know it.

Featuring Tom Merritt.

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The word processor never got "invented" as such, it just slowly developed out of things like typewriters and even slowly merged from electronic appliances into software. To understand the origin of the word processor you and I would recognize, the one with bold, italic, underline, we need to follow the journey of future space tourist Charles Simonyi.

Featuring Tom Merritt.

Episode transcript available here.

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You all know what a mouse is. It’s so common, that you probably don't even think that much about why it's called a mouse. But back in 1968, the man generally credited with the invention of the mouse, Douglas Engelbart, had to apologize for what was certainly a silly name.

Featuring Tom Merritt.

Full episode transcript here.

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You may have used them hundreds of times today, but the origin of hypertexts dates all the way back to at least 1963.

Featuring Tom Merritt.

Full episode transcript here.

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