The Nostalgic Nerds Podcast

Renee Murphy, Marc Massar

5.0 (3)
TECHNOLOGY

The Nostalgic Nerds Podcast, where we take a deep dive into geek culture, tech evolution, and the impact of the past on today’s digital world.

6H AGO

S2E17 - Red Means Stop

Have you ever sat at a red light at 2 AM with no traffic in any direction and waited anyway? Have you ever rolled through that same red light 2 AM and felt vaguely guilty about it? Of course you have. The traffic light is the most obeyed command in human history. Rarely enforced (unless you're in the UK like Marc). No officer in sight. Just a coloured light on a pole, and a near-universal agreement to stop when it's red and go when it's green. This episode traces the humble traffic signal from the gas-lit lantern that exploded outside the Houses of Parliament in 1868 (yes, exploded, three weeks in) to the adaptive AI systems that watch real-time traffic and adjust timing in milliseconds. Along the way: railroad colour conventions, William Potts in Detroit and Garrett Morgan in Cleveland, the political question of whose green is longer, the inductive loop that can't see your bicycle, and the moment where you discover that the colour you grew up calling yellow is officially called amber once you cross an ocean. Ride along with Marc and Renee through another look at a technology that became infrastructure as it spread beyond its humble beginnings. We'd love to hear from you. Click here to give us ideas on new episodes. Join Renee and Marc as they discuss tech topics with a view on their nostalgic pasts in tech that help them understand today's challenges and tomorrow's potential. email us at nostalgicnerdspodcast@gmail.com Come visit us at https://www.nostalgicnerdspodcast.com/episodes or wherever you get your podcasts.

1 hr
1D AGO · BONUS

S2E17 Bonus - Just Amber

There are songs and poems about the red and green lights. But what about Amber? Shy. Fleeting. Amber has a job too. This week's episode is about traffic lights and it felt appropriate to cast our gaze at the glowing amber hue and dedicate this week's song to the lesser-loved traffic light colour. [Verse 1] Three seconds is all I get Between the start and the stop You look at me like you know What I'm trying to say Brake a little early Gas a little late Either way you're answering Something I never quite said [Chorus] I'm amber Just amber You stop for the red You rushin' past the green I'm just Amber in the middle I'm amber Just amber [Verse 2] Songs get written for red Poems for green No one writes about warning That sits in between I've got a job in the system I slow the whole town down I'm the breath that the city takes In that moment unseen [Chorus] I'm amber Just amber You stop for the red You rushin' past the green I'm just Amber in the middle I'm amber Just amber [Bridge] I don't get named in the story I don't get time in the scene I'm just the turn of a second Between what was and what's been You're already leaving Before I begin I'm gone in a heartbeat Like I've never been [Final Chorus] I'm amber Just amber You stop for the red You rushin' past the green I'm just Amber in the middle I'm amber Just amber We'd love to hear from you. Click here to give us ideas on new episodes. Join Renee and Marc as they discuss tech topics with a view on their nostalgic pasts in tech that help them understand today's challenges and tomorrow's potential. email us at nostalgicnerdspodcast@gmail.com Come visit us at https://www.nostalgicnerdspodcast.com/episodes or wherever you get your podcasts.

3 min
APR 30

S2E16 - You Are Here

Do you remember when "I think we missed the turn" caused a complete emotional spectrum of reaction? When the car would go quiet because someone had to admit they'd lost the page boundary on Thomas Guide map 347 and the next bit was on page 389? So do we. There used to be a thing called knowing where you were. It lived in a spiral-bound atlas in the back seat, or in the head of whoever was driving. The Thomas Guide assumed you'd figure it out. The TripTik gave you only the path. GPS skipped past both and asks only that you keep the wheel pointed forward. As usual, Renee and Marc travel through the past to see how that shaped today and where we're heading down the road. Maps, Thomas Bros, Mapquest, GPS...and some military satellites in there along the way. If you have ever sworn at a Thomas Guide while driving in Los Angeles traffic, watched your phone confidently route you into a field, or forgotten which way is north in the city you've lived in for ten years, this one's for you. And if you're still that one person who knows the diagonal shortcut through the residential streets that gets you to the airport in twenty minutes, please hold that knowledge. It's getting rarer. We'd love to hear from you. Click here to give us ideas on new episodes. Join Renee and Marc as they discuss tech topics with a view on their nostalgic pasts in tech that help them understand today's challenges and tomorrow's potential. email us at nostalgicnerdspodcast@gmail.com Come visit us at https://www.nostalgicnerdspodcast.com/episodes or wherever you get your podcasts.

1h 17m
APR 29 · BONUS

(S2E16 Bonus) - Three Wrong Turns Home

Tomorrow's episode is all about the transition from a world where maps were an everyday driving tool to the world we have now with satellites buzzing overhead telling us exactly where we are and how to get where we want to go. And because this is a podcast about things we miss and what we learn, we learned that keeping maps current is a big job! Things change. Roads change. And...GPS changes us. As we depend on GPS, our spatial skills degrade. So, that's the idea for this week's song. Places we once knew change and we lose our spatial sense. Have a listen - Three Wrong Turns Home. [Verse 1] Rolled off the highway Coffee gone cold Feels like it's all been changed Record shop's a coffee place Diner has a different name Miss my own street Laughing round the turns [Chorus] Three wrong turns from home Three wrong turns On a road I ought to know Drove it in my sleep Lord, knew this town by heart Three wrong turns from home [Verse 2] Past the old pool hall Now it's a mini-mall School's gone, fence and dirt Light at Seventh hardly waits Bridge wider than I knew My maps are wrong I don't know when All the names I knew are gone [Chorus] Three wrong turns from home Three wrong turns On a road I ought to know Drove it in my sleep Lord, knew this town by heart Three wrong turns from home [Bridge] Maybe I was gone too long Maybe town moved on Radio's still playing Windows down, sun going down [Final Chorus] Three wrong turns from home Three wrong turns On a road I ought to know Drove it in my sleep Lord, knew this town by heart Three wrong turns from home We'd love to hear from you. Click here to give us ideas on new episodes. Join Renee and Marc as they discuss tech topics with a view on their nostalgic pasts in tech that help them understand today's challenges and tomorrow's potential. email us at nostalgicnerdspodcast@gmail.com Come visit us at https://www.nostalgicnerdspodcast.com/episodes or wherever you get your podcasts.

4 min
APR 23

S2E15 - Zork to Zelda

Do you remember pulling a spring-loaded plunger without being told what it did? Watching a goomba walk toward you and dying without being told why? Typing "go north" into a cursor because there was nothing else to type? So do we. The best games taught you how to play them just by existing. No tutorials. No pop-ups. No onboarding flow. Pinball did it with physics. Zork did it with a parser. Mario did it with a question mark block. The machine showed you what it was. You figured out the rest. This episode is about fifty years of that. Coin-op arcades to twelve million monthly subscribers. Quarters in a diner to modern open worlds that sell the absence of hand-holding as a feature. The hardware changed. The business model changed. The core loop stayed the same. Here is a world. Here are the rules. Figure it out. If you ever mailed Activision a photograph of your Pitfall score, still picture a small white house west of an open field, or held a Galaga high score at a pizza parlour long enough that you'd drop in just to check no one had knocked you off, this one's for you. And if you got eaten by a Grue, we forgive you. We'd love to hear from you. Click here to give us ideas on new episodes. Join Renee and Marc as they discuss tech topics with a view on their nostalgic pasts in tech that help them understand today's challenges and tomorrow's potential. email us at nostalgicnerdspodcast@gmail.com Come visit us at https://www.nostalgicnerdspodcast.com/episodes or wherever you get your podcasts.

55 min
APR 22 · BONUS

Likely To Be Eaten (S2E15 Bonus)

Do you remember green screens? Blinking cursors? Games with words instead of photo-realistic massively multiplayer open world shooter role-playing sim games? We do too. Zork was original. Creative. And extremely well-designed. So, this week's song is an ode to Zork. Resource management. Wandering the unknown. Maps. Frustration. Triumph. Self-evident gameplay. See if you can catch all the Zork references. [Verse 1] Brass lantern on the counter Half an hour left to burn Mailbox near the white house Nowhere left to turn Words in phosphor green You are likely to be eaten [Pre-Chorus] Hello sailor, hello darkness Hello everything that waits I can feel the Great Underground Through the hinges in the gates [Chorus] Likely to be eaten Likely to be gone Likely to be lost before the light comes on But I'm walking anyway With a dying match in hand Likely to be eaten And I want to understand [Verse 2] Elven sword is glowing blue Something's moving in the dark Thief was here and left the trophy case Empty as my lantern's spark I can picture how it happens I can see the lantern drop Standing in the empty hall Will I make it out at all [Pre-Chorus] But the cursor keeps on blinking And the verb will come to mind All the nouns are in the inventory Every one I need to find [Chorus] Likely to be eaten Likely to be gone Likely to be lost before the light comes on But I'm walking anyway With a dying match in hand Likely to be eaten And I want to understand [Bridge] The game gave me a name And a room I couldn't leave I held a lantern high To the edge of everything Rules arrived the moment That the silence learned to sing I'm the one who knows the words now I'm the one walking on [Final Chorus] Likely to be eaten Likely to be gone Likely to be lost before the light comes on But I'm walking anyway With a dying match in hand Likely to be eaten Now I understand We'd love to hear from you. Click here to give us ideas on new episodes. Join Renee and Marc as they discuss tech topics with a view on their nostalgic pasts in tech that help them understand today's challenges and tomorrow's potential. email us at nostalgicnerdspodcast@gmail.com Come visit us at https://www.nostalgicnerdspodcast.com/episodes or wherever you get your podcasts.

5 min
APR 16

S2E14 - When Your Car Says Subscribe

In 1882, Edison opened Pearl Street Station in lower Manhattan and started selling electricity by the meter. He built the grid, built the appliances that plugged into it, and then tried to build an electric car that would charge off the whole system. The car was never the product. The car was a device that generated demand for his platform. The battery failed. Gasoline won. And for about a century, the car became the most personal object in American life. You chose the colour. You chose the engine. You turned a key and everything under the hood was yours. Plum crazy purple. Grabber blue. Chrome that caught sunlight and threw it back at you. Nobody was charging you a monthly fee to use your own heated seats. Marc and Renee trace the full arc, from Baker Electric runabouts marketed to women in the 1890s through Spindletop and the Model T, the muscle car era and its death by regulation, the oil crisis that killed horsepower overnight, and the return of electric with Tesla and lithium-ion solving a chemistry problem that had been open for ninety years. Then the economics. Dealer margins compressing from 4% to 2%. Software subscriptions running at 40% margins. BMW charging $18 a month to turn on a heating element already wired into the seat. Tesla selling acceleration boosts by removing software restrictions on hardware you already paid for. GM projecting $25 billion in annual software revenue by 2030. Edison figured out the model 130 years ago. The rest of the industry is just catching up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Killed_the_Electric_Car%3F Documentary about the EV1 for those interested. We'd love to hear from you. Click here to give us ideas on new episodes. Join Renee and Marc as they discuss tech topics with a view on their nostalgic pasts in tech that help them understand today's challenges and tomorrow's potential. email us at nostalgicnerdspodcast@gmail.com Come visit us at https://www.nostalgicnerdspodcast.com/episodes or wherever you get your podcasts.

1h 1m
APR 15 · BONUS

Chrome and Highway (S2E14 Bonus)

Here's the bonus for tomorrow's episode - Chrome and Highway The episode is about cars. But...cars as instruments of platforms. Edison partnered with Ford to produce electric cars so he could sell more electricity. It failed and what we got (in the US at least) was a car culture. A century of cars representing freedom and self-expression. And now? Cars are becoming the mechanisms to sell recurring revenue. Heated seats, OnStar, performance upgrades, intelligent features...all come with a monthly price now. But after a century of "I bought it; it's mine" will people reject the new car business model? Only time will tell. So, this week's song is a manifestation of the open road, the muscle car adrenaline, the idea of owning the car and making it your own...but seeing the end of that road as the soft lights and touchscreens ask us to upgrade our transportation experience. [Verse 1] Hand on the shifter Leather still warm Window cracked open Smell of the storm Eight cylinders turning Slow as a pulse Nothing behind me Nothing I owe [Verse 2] Blacktop is humming Under the wheels Dashboard is empty Nothing but dials Needle is climbing Past what it should Foot on the floor now God it feels good [Chorus ] Chrome and highway Wind in my teeth Nobody asking Where I will be Chrome and highway Burn through the miles Every mile is mine [Verse 3 ] Painted the hood In flames and fire Laid every stripe Down the centre line Rumble so loud Every plug every wire The road shakes with it [Chorus] Chrome and highway Wind in my teeth Nobody asking Where I will be Chrome and highway Burn through the miles Every mile is mine [Bridge ] A light on the dash I don't recognise Soft little chime Asking me to subscribe The road just stopped Somewhere I can't see And the key in my hand Doesn't feel like it's mine [Final Chorus ] Chrome and highway Wind in my teeth Nobody asking Where I will be Chrome and highway Somewhere behind Every mile was mine We'd love to hear from you. Click here to give us ideas on new episodes. Join Renee and Marc as they discuss tech topics with a view on their nostalgic pasts in tech that help them understand today's challenges and tomorrow's potential. email us at nostalgicnerdspodcast@gmail.com Come visit us at https://www.nostalgicnerdspodcast.com/episodes or wherever you get your podcasts.

4 min

5

out of 5

3 Ratings

The Nostalgic Nerds Podcast, where we take a deep dive into geek culture, tech evolution, and the impact of the past on today’s digital world.

Creator

Renee Murphy, Marc Massar
Years Active

2025 - 2026
Episodes

54
Rating

Clean
Copyright

© 2026 The Nostalgic Nerds Podcast
Show Website

The Nostalgic Nerds Podcast