Category: Stories & Inspiration
Stories of science, technology, startup journeys and lessons from history.
Donald Knuth Expected TeX to Take One Year. The Book He Built It For Still Disappointed Him.
In 1977, Donald Knuth expected TeX to take a year. It took about a decade, because the hard part was not the code but learning…
A Math Professor Caught the Pentium Dividing Wrong. Five Empty Table Cells Led to a $475 Million Charge.
In 1994, Thomas Nicely found the Pentium FDIV bug Intel already knew about. See how five empty table cells slipped past testing and cost $475…
A 45-Minute C++ Build Helped Start Go. Very Few of Its Early Programmers Came From C++.
How a 45-minute C++ build at Google in 2007 led Rob Pike, Robert Griesemer and Ken Thompson to start Go, and why most early users…
Joe Farman Thought His Ozone Meters Had Broken. NASA Doubted Its Satellite. Both Had Found the Ozone Hole.
How was the ozone hole discovered in 1985? Joe Farman’s team published first, while NASA’s satellite data waited on a backlog and a faulty ground…
Ivan Sutherland’s 1963 Sketchpad Stored Rules, Not Just Lines. Change the Master, and Every Instance Follows.
How Ivan Sutherland’s 1963 Sketchpad thesis stored constraints and master-instance drawings on MIT’s TX-2, after a visit from Claude Shannon changed the plan.
A Silent Bug Hid a Failing Grid From Its Operators. Then the 2003 Northeast Blackout Hit 50 Million People.
In the 2003 Northeast blackout, a race-condition bug froze FirstEnergy’s alarms for nearly two hours. What operators missed, and why the bug wasn’t the cause.
Apache’s Own FAQ Said the Name Meant ‘A Patchy Server.’ Its Co-Founder Credits a Geronimo Documentary.
How did the Apache HTTP Server get its name? Its 1997 FAQ said ‘a patchy server,’ but co-founder Brian Behlendorf credits a Geronimo documentary.
Ken Thompson Designed UTF-8 on a Diner Placemat in 1992. By Friday, Plan 9 Was Running on It.
How Ken Thompson designed UTF-8 on a diner placemat in 1992, why Plan 9 switched to it within days, and why the early RFCs credited…
Clifford Cocks Solved the Public-Key Puzzle Overnight in 1973. GCHQ Kept It Secret Until 1997.
In 1973 GCHQ mathematician Clifford Cocks devised what was essentially RSA in one evening. Here is why Britain shelved it and kept it secret until…
Two Bell Labs Astronomers Evicted Pigeons to Fix a Noisy Antenna. The Noise Came From the Early Universe.
In 1965 Penzias and Wilson traced an antenna noise at Bell Labs to the cosmic microwave background. How pigeons, careful checks and a phone call…
SIGNAL TITANS