Kaizen and Kaikaku

About this episode

The episode features a conversation with Daniel Terhorst-North about early computing experiences and the evolution of gaming technology.

An airhacks.fm conversation with Daniel Terhorst-North ( @tastapod.com ) about: first computer experience with the ZX81 and its 1K memory, the 1K chess game on ZX81, the ZX Spectrum with 16K and later 48K memory, the Amstrad 128K, typing in game listings from computer magazines, Dan's brother John hacking ZX spectrum games using a hardware freeze device and memory peeking/poking, cracking game encryption and copy protection on 8-bit tape cassette games, the arms race between game publishers and hackers, cracking the Star Wars game security before its release, ZX Spectrum fan sites and retro gaming communities, classic games including 3D Monster Maze and Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy , sprite graphics innovation on the Z80 chip, first internship at Domark publishing Empire Strikes Back on ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64 , second internship at IBM Hursley Park working on CICS in PL/1 and Rexx , the contrast between casual game studio culture and IBM corporate culture in the 1980s, IBM's role as a founding partner of J2EE Enterprise Java , JMS wrapping MQ Series, the reliability of MQ Series compared to later messaging technologies, finding and reporting a concurrency bug in MQ Series…

People in this episode

Host: Adam Bien

Guest: Daniel Terhorst-North

Topics covered

• retro gaming
• computer history
• game development
• technology evolution
• IBM technologies
• programming languages

Keywords

• ZX81
• ZX Spectrum
• retro gaming
• IBM
• game hacking
• CICS
• J2EE

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: tastapod.com, IBM

Products: ZX81, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad 128K, Empire Strikes Back, CICS, PL/1, Rexx, J2EE Enterprise Java, MQ Series, IBM Aglets

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