Histories

Histories of sixteen famous programs, from the Apollo guidance computer to a hash. Each essay names the people, the program, and the rights.

1. Apollo 11 ignition1969A routine in the lunar module, named like a radio shout, lit the engine.
2. CERN web server1993The first web server, and the day CERN gave the software away.
3. SQLiteA public-domain database small enough to live inside the phone.
4. RSS 1.02000A fourteen-year-old was one author of a syndication format, not the only one.
5. Bitcoin halvingFifty coins, then half of that, on a schedule written into the client.
6. Zen of PythonNineteen lines, hidden in a file, printed by a joke import.
7. jQuery2006A function named with a dollar sign, and a shortcut for when the page is ready.
8. JPEGThe routine that turns a photograph's frequencies back into pixels.
9. Hello, world1978The program people teach first. The book page stays off the object.
10. The first web pageThe first site explained the web. Its words were not part of the later gift.
11. Linux start_kernelThe function a machine passes through on its way to userspace.
12. Git2005Ten days in April 2005, after the old license disappeared.
13. Quake III inverse square rootA bit trick for lighting, credited to the wrong person for years.
14. SHA-256The hash inside certificates and blocks, drawn from the standard, not from OpenSSL.
15. TeXThe program Knuth wrote so his books would look right.
16. Attention2017A 2017 paper replaced recurrence with a comparison of every token to every other.