Tedium
The dull side of the internet. A newsletter by @ShortFormBlog's Ernie Smith. (You may have seen us at @motherboard, @atlasobscura, or @neatorama. We're busy.)
A long time ago in an encoding standard not so far away, an early 'net user tried to remake “Star Wars” in ASCII art form. He got further than you’d guess.
Four decades ago, the Speak & Spell came about, and the result was Texas Instruments’ greatest gadget and a pop-culture icon.
The surprising place that Unsolved Mysteries holds in modern culture—as a show that’s still being updated, years after being taken off the air.
The British company Codemasters, best known for the Game Genie, didn’t let a pesky lack of license get in the way of creating some of the NES’ best games.
The history of flexi discs, the cheap alternative to vinyl records that was once a marketer’s dream material and an unusual Cold War workaround.
The story of ARM Holdings, one of our most important tech companies, is full of sheer luck, happy accidents, and a faded British computing icon.