Adafruit Blog

> Dynamic websites is a core idea of the modern internet and that concept did not exist in 1994 internet.

CGI and other forms of dynamicity absolutely existed in 1994[0].

> JavaScript did not exist.

IT just needed 1 more year!

> Modern internet is also real-time and largely community driven. Even the notion of these did not exist in 1994 internet.

Check out MUDs and MOOs. Lambda was 3 years old in 1994. Wired called online virtual worlds "the addiction of the '90s[1]."

> Websockets did not exist.

But Berkeley sockets did (although you might have had to do some tinkering with Winsock on Windows!) , and I'm curious what you can do over a web socket that you can't do over a traditional socket.

> Social networks did not exist.

MUDs and mOOs again.

> Video conferencing did not exist.

Intel actually released a "kit" to enable this on regular Windows PCs in 1994. Cost a pretty penny though[2]!

>Collaborative document editing did not exist.

The first instance of a collaborative real-time editor was demonstrated by Douglas Engelbart in 1968, in The Mother of All Demos. Widely available implementations of the concept took decades to appear. A piece of software called Instant Update was released for the classic Mac OS in 1991 from ON Technology[3].

> The ideas of wearables and always connected devices (smart watches, speakers, thermostats, lights, etc) did not exist in 1994.

Proto wearables absolutely existed in 1994[4].

X10 was developed in 1975 by Pico Electronics of…

Terrapin Logo for the Apple ][ and C64 came with a 6502 assembler written in Logo by Leigh Klotz, that they used to write Logo primitives (for controlling the turtle, etc).

It would be ambitious to make a self hosting 6502 Logo meta assembler, by porting the entire 6502 assembly language Logo source code to the 6502 Logo Assembler!

Leigh, wasn't the assembler that you used for the original Apple ][ version of Logo written in MacLisp running on a PDP-10?

The Apple II Source Code for the LOGO Language Found (adafruit.com)
379 points by mmastrac on Oct 4, 2018 | hide | past | web | favorite | 89 comments

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18142287

https://blog.adafruit.com/2018/10/04/the-apple-ii-source-code-for-the-logo-language-found/

Lars: The link in the article to the code from https://github.com/PDP-10/its is broken. I found a few references to it in the repo. Did you have to take it down, or did you move it somewhere else?

https://github.com/PDP-10/its/blob/a5694acbf9b6185a36d18d22631914ac40605d6b/doc/logo.md

>Logo

>"I too see the computer presence as a potent influence on the human mind. I am very much aware of the holding power of an interactive computer and of how taking the computer as a model can influence the way we think about ourselves. In fact the work on LOGO to which I have devoted much of the past years consists precisely of developing such forces in positive directions."

>Seymour Papert

>"Logo is the name for a philosophy of education and for a…

>It has connectors on all four sides and no screw holes for mounting

There's three nuts soldered on the back: https://www.unihiker.com/wiki/dimension

>That layout started with Arduino, continued into Raspberry Pi

Pre-2010 Arduino boards had three 1/8 inch mounting holes, post-2010 ones had four: https://blog.adafruit.com/2011/02/28/arduino-hole-dimensions-drawing/

The Raspberry Pi 1 had two mounting holes located in stupid places, but the Pi 4 has four: https://www.robot-advance.com/userfiles/www.robot-advance.com/images/raspberry-4-modele-b-4go.jpg

>Note how vague the site gets when they talk about applications.

It's a DFRobot product. I used to work for a company that distributed DFRobot products in the US, and this is broadly consistent with their corporate philosophy. Their designers crank out thousands of products to keep ahead of other Shenzen companies who are fast-following them. (Notably Seeedstudio) You can view their full catalog here, and it's quite the sight to see: https://www.dfrobot.com/category-48.html

They generally take the OEM reference design, put it on a pcb, and add connectors. The API will be minimal. Compatibility is a joke. (For instance, they make no effort to avoid I2C address collisions-- how could they, when most of them are hard-coded by the device vendor, and they only make the PCB? You have to be careful when stacking several different Arduino shields, since they'll very often be talking on the same pins. There will be no warning of…

I never had the Spinwelder but remember seeing it in the back of the Sears catalog. One of my favorite toys as a 70's kid, the Vertibird toy helicopter:

http://www.timepassagesnostalgia.com/&searchkeywords=vertibird&sis=-1&rdir=1

Like any good helicopter toy I was unable to fly it when I first woke up on Christmas and shoved the batteries in. You actually had to control the lift (not a collective but speed control on the rotor) and the pitch. Too much pitch and you lose lift so had to compensate with extra lift.

By the New Years I was flying like a pro, swinging around and pulling back on the pitch to reverse thrust and stop over a dime....

My favorite "make stuff toys" of the 70's were my Erector set and Lego set of course.

But then I also had this trippy Buckminster-Fuller-meets-Light-Bright building toy called an Astrolite:

https://blog.adafruit.com/2019/01/16/vintage-toy-fun-astrolite-by-hasbro-1969-toys-adafruit-hasbro-adafruit/

The printer spyware has an interesting backstory.

A Spanish venture-backed firm is developing some vaporware called Print&Go and has convinced the NY DA's office that it'll permanently solve the Luigi problem.

The best part? This company is drooling at the possibility of getting a permanent rent-seeking license for printers they didn't design, for nonexistent vaporware software that reduces its capabilities.

They frame it as "enhancing 3D printer capabilities," the way a slaveowner would frame putting chains on a slave's wrists as an "employee retention innovation."

Is everyone involved with promoting this software and these laws lying? Of course.

https://blog.adafruit.com/2026/02/08/any-user-who-has-a-3d-printer-would-have-this-software-installed-printgos-plan-to-become-the-drm-of-3d-printing/

>>Is this meant sarcastically?

No I don't mean it sarcastically, why do you ask? Do you not see Lady Ada as a shining light of the industry?

Lady Ada is one of the industry's greatest hardware designers and I would value her opinion on this.

If you don't know who she is, her name is Limor Fried and she founded AdaFruit.

I don't have current stats but from 2016: Revenue US$45 million (2016)[1] Number of employees 105

Front page of Make Magazine:

https://blog.adafruit.com/2017/05/08/limor-ladyada-fried-on-the-cover-of-make-magazine-makev57/

Front page of Wired:

https://www.wired.com/2011/03/wired-magazines-cover-features-its-first-lady-engineer/

Front page of Smore magazine:

https://www.adafruit.com/product/3920

Front page of Hackspace:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/adafruit/40061387915