On The Metal Oxide Computer Company

On this episode of On the Metal, we interview Ken Shirriff, long-time computer programmer, retro computer aficionado, analog computer programmer, and miner of bitcoin by hand. Join us as we talk about breaking down silicon wafers, restoring old computers, what computers Ken grew up with, and even mining bitcoin on an array of different computers.

You can find Star on Twitter at https://twitter.com/starsandrobots.

Super Munchers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munchers

Metrowerks CodeWarrior: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CodeWarrior

RadioShack (RIP): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RadioShack

"Marilyn Monroe's World War II Drone Program": https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/04/upshot/marilyn-monroes-world-war-ii-drone-program.html

Radioplane Company: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioplane_Company

Piasecki PA-97: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piasecki_PA-97

TacoCopter: https://tacocopter.com/

TacoCopter on HackerNews: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3742676

TacoCopter's cameo on Stephen Colbert: http://www.cc.com/video-clips/53yh09/the-colbert-report-thought-for-food---tacocopter


Wired on TacoCopter: https://www.wired.com/2012/03/qa-with-tacocopter/

FAA Section 333 (now Section 44807): https://www.faa.gov/uas/advanced_operations/certification/section_44807/

FAA Part 107: https://www.faa.gov/uas/media/part_107_summary.pdf

Canidu: http://www.canidu.com/

Boeing 737 MAX: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737_MAX

Road train: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_train

Checklists: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checklist

United Airlines Channel 9: https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/united-airlines-mileageplus/726789-consolidated-interesting-things-heard-channel-9-thread-merged.html

United Airlines ad from 1990: https://www.youtube.com/watch/mU2rpcAABbA

TRACON-II PC game: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tracon_II

National Transportation Safety Board: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Transportation_Safety_Board

ValuJet 592: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ValuJet_Flight_592

Amelia Earhart: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amelia_Earhart


Skunk Works by Ben Johnson: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/101438.Skunk_Works

Lockheed Skunk Works: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skunk_Works

Clarence "Kelly" Johnson: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_Johnson_(engineer)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fish_(Unix_shell)

Who Owns the Sky?: The Struggle to Control Airspace from the Wright Brothers On by Stuart Banner: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6402086-who-owns-the-sky


Turbulent Skies by T. A. Heppenheimer: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1492469.Turbulent_Skies


Hard Landing by Thomas Petzinget: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/438607.Hard_Landing


SKYGODS: The Fall of Pan Am by Robert Gandt: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13010881-skygod


Deregulation Knockouts: Round One by Tom Norwood: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4718255-deregulation-knockouts

Convertiplane: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convertiplane


The Dream Machine: The Untold History of the Notorious V-22 Osprey by Richard Whittle: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8008152-the-dream-machine

On this episode of On the Metal, we interview John Graham-Cumming. Some folks might know John as the CTO of Cloudflare, but he is also a great source of knowledge about computer history including Turing, Babbage, and Lovelace. Join us as we step back in time and learn about how John got started in computers, hacking his school's network to make his own network faster, and all sorts of details of computing history.

Welp, that's a wrap for the first season of the On the Metal podcast. Join us as we reminisce about some of our favorite parts (although it was very hard to choose). We also uncover some aspects of the podcast you never heard about! While this is the end of the first season, we absolutely cannot wait for the second season. Thank you so much for listening, we will be back soon!

On this episode of On the Metal, we interview legendary game designer and programmer Jonathan Blow. Join along as Jonathan takes us from collision detection on the Atari 800, through porting Doom to SGI's famous set-top box, starting a game company at the worst possible time, his adventures with the (in)famous Cell processor, making several hit games -- and his more recent experiences with a new programming language of his own creation.

On this episode of On the Metal, we interview Jon Masters, computer architecture raconteur, microprocessor enfant terrible, and Patron Saint of Lost Computational Causes. Join us as we learn why Jon hates simultaneous multithreading, why he loves UEFI (?!) -- and when we can expect the supremacy of the quantum blockchain.