First Principles · Concepts
Concepts
Inventions, ideas, and the arguments that outlived their moment.
8 written · 186 catalogued
Written
8 Similitude The engineering science of scale: what else changes when every dimension of a thing changes. Moore's Law The observation that became the industry's schedule. Microelectronics and the Art of Similitude Engelbart's two-page 1960 ISSCC paper arguing that each new scale breaks the old rules and opens new possibilities. Bootstrapping Engelbart's central loop: using tools to get better at improving tools, compounding collective IQ. Xerox Alto The first computer built around a graphical interface for one person — never sold commercially. Macintosh The 1984 machine that carried the graphical interface onto an ordinary desk. SDS 940 The three-ton time-sharing mainframe that ran NLS from Menlo Park. Time-Sharing Many people on one machine at once — the precondition for interactive computing.
All concepts
A–Z →Mathematics & Logic 11
Algorithmstub A finite, unambiguous procedure for producing a result. Boolean Algebrastub The algebra of true and false that circuits are built on. Symbolic Logicstub Formal notation for reasoning, the ancestor of programming languages. Computabilitystub What can and cannot be computed, in principle. Information Theorystub Shannon's mathematics of bits, entropy and channel capacity. Lambda Calculusstub Church's model of computation as pure function application. Turing Machinestub The abstract machine that defines computation itself. Complexity Theory (P vs NP)stub The study of what is computable in practice, not just in principle. Similitude The engineering science of scale: what else changes when every dimension of a thing changes. Dimensional Analysis & Pi Termsstub The method behind similitude — reducing a system to dimensionless ratios that hold across scales. Error-Correcting Codesstub Mathematics that lets data survive a noisy world.
Hardware 19
Vacuum Tubestub The first electronic switch and amplifier. Transistorstub The 1947 invention that replaced the tube and shrank the world. Integrated Circuitstub Many transistors on a single piece of silicon. Planar Processstub Hoerni's method that made mass-produced chips possible. Microprocessorstub A whole computer's logic on one chip. DRAMstub Cheap, dense volatile memory — the computer's working space. Flash Memorystub Non-volatile storage that made phones and SSDs possible. GPUstub Parallel graphics hardware that turned out to be an AI engine. Magnetic Core Memorystub Woven magnetic rings that stored bits before silicon. Punched Cardsstub The first widely used medium for programs and data. Hard Disk Drivestub Spinning magnetic storage, from IBM's 1956 RAMAC onward. SSDstub Solid-state storage that removed the last moving part. CMOSstub The low-power logic family that all modern chips use. Photolithography & EUVstub Printing circuits with light — the hardest manufacturing on earth. FPGAstub Reconfigurable logic, programmable after manufacture. ASICstub A chip built for exactly one job. TPU & AI Acceleratorsstub Silicon designed specifically for neural network math. Moore's Law The observation that became the industry's schedule. Dennard Scalingstub The power-scaling rule whose end forced multicore.
Computer Architecture 13
Stored Program Computerstub A machine that holds its instructions in the same memory as its data. Von Neumann Architecturestub The canonical design of processor, memory and bus. RISCstub Fewer, simpler instructions executed faster. CISCstub Rich instruction sets that do more per instruction. Parallel Computingstub Many processors working on one problem at once. Microcodestub The layer of interpretation inside the processor itself. Pipeliningstub Overlapping instruction stages to raise throughput. Caching & Memory Hierarchystub Keeping the data you need close and fast. Virtual Memorystub The illusion of more memory than you have. Multicorestub Many processors on one die, once clock speed stalled. ARM Architecturestub The efficient instruction set that won mobile and is taking servers. x86stub The instruction set that ran the PC era. Quantum Computingstub Computation using superposition and entanglement.
Human–Computer Interaction 29
Computer Mousestub The pointing device Engelbart and English built in 1964. Hypertextstub Text with links — Nelson's word, the web's foundation. Hypermediastub Linked media beyond text. Windows (the interface idea)stub Overlapping regions of screen, each its own context. Iconsstub Small pictures standing in for objects and actions. Menusstub Discoverable lists of commands. GUIstub The graphical interface, from the Alto to everything after. WYSIWYGstub The screen showing what the page will be. Desktop Metaphorstub Files, folders and a trash can on a virtual desk. Object-Oriented Programmingstub Software structured as interacting objects. Smalltalkstub The language and environment that defined OOP and the GUI. Cut / Copy / Pastestub Tesler's universal editing gesture. Laser Printerstub PARC's invention that paid for everything else PARC did. Ethernetstub Metcalfe's local network, still under every office floor. NLS (oN-Line System)stub The integrated system Engelbart's team built and demonstrated in 1968 — combining the mouse, on-screen windows, hypertext links, and real-time collaborative editing into one working environment decades ahead of its time. Microelectronics and the Art of Similitude Engelbart's two-page 1960 ISSCC paper arguing that each new scale breaks the old rules and opens new possibilities. Augmenting Human Intellectstub Engelbart's 1962 conceptual framework: the computer as amplifier of human capability rather than automator of calculation. The Mother of All Demosstub The December 1968 San Francisco presentation of NLS — named years afterward by Steven Levy. Bootstrapping Engelbart's central loop: using tools to get better at improving tools, compounding collective IQ. Sketchpad & the Light Penstub Sutherland's 1963 program, the ancestor of all interactive graphics. Command Linestub The text interface that never went away. Touchscreenstub Direct manipulation without an intermediary device. Voice Interfacesstub Speech as input, from Siri onward. AR / VRstub Interfaces that place computation in space. Xerox Alto The first computer built around a graphical interface for one person — never sold commercially. Xerox Starstub The 8010, 1981: the Alto’s commercial descendant. A graphical interface three years before the Macintosh, at roughly thirty times the price. Macintosh The 1984 machine that carried the graphical interface onto an ordinary desk. SDS 940 The three-ton time-sharing mainframe that ran NLS from Menlo Park. Time-Sharing Many people on one machine at once — the precondition for interactive computing.
Software 21
BASICstub The language that taught a generation to program. Cstub Ritchie's language, still the substrate of everything. C++stub Objects with C's performance. Javastub Write once, run anywhere — and the enterprise's default. Pythonstub The readable language that became AI's lingua franca. Linuxstub The open kernel that runs the internet. UNIXstub The operating system whose ideas outlived its code. Windowsstub The operating system of the PC era. macOSstub NeXT's Unix underneath, Apple's interface on top. FORTRANstub The first widely used high-level language. COBOLstub Business computing's language, still running the banks. LISPstub McCarthy's language of lists, symbols and self-modifying code. JavaScriptstub Written in ten days; now the language of the web. Compilersstub Programs that translate human languages into machine code. Operating Systemsstub The layer that manages hardware on every program's behalf. Open Source Licensingstub The legal machinery that made shared code sustainable. Version Control & Gitstub Tracking every change, and making collaboration possible. Spreadsheet (VisiCalc)stub The killer app that sold the personal computer. Word Processingstub Text editing that replaced the typewriter. APIsstub Defined seams that let software build on software. Package Managersstub Infrastructure for reusing other people's code.
Networking 19
ARPANETstub The 1969 research network that became the internet. TCP/IPstub The protocols that let any network talk to any other. DNSstub The naming system that turns words into addresses. HTTPstub The web's request-and-response protocol. HTMLstub The markup that describes a web page. URLstub A universal address for anything online. World Wide Webstub Berners-Lee's 1989 proposal, now the default medium. Browserstub The program that made the web usable by everyone. Packet Switchingstub Breaking messages into pieces that find their own way. Routing Protocolsstub How networks learn the shape of the internet. Public-Key Cryptographystub Encryption without a shared secret. SSL / TLSstub The padlock that made online commerce possible. Wi-Fistub Untethered local networking. Bluetoothstub Short-range wireless for devices. GPSstub Satellite positioning, now assumed by everything. Cellular Networks & 5Gstub The mobile infrastructure behind the smartphone. Fiber Opticsstub Glass and light carrying nearly all the world's data. CDNsstub Caching content near the people asking for it. Blockchainstub Append-only ledgers without a central keeper.
Data & Search 11
PageRankstub Ranking pages by who links to them. Search Enginestub The index that made the web navigable. Web Indexingstub Crawling and organizing the web at scale. Knowledge Graphstub Structured entities and relations behind search answers. Relational Databasesstub Codd's model of data as tables and relations. SQLstub The query language that outlived every rival. NoSQLstub Trading strict consistency for scale. MapReduce, GFS & BigTablestub Google's papers that created the big data industry. Distributed Consensusstub Paxos, Raft, and agreeing when machines fail. Data Warehousingstub Centralized analytical stores for business questions. Recommender Systemsstub Algorithms that decide what you see next.
Mobile 8
Smartphonestub A pocket computer that also makes calls. Multi-touchstub Interfaces that respond to more than one finger. iPhonestub The 2007 product that reset the industry. Androidstub The open mobile OS that took the rest of the market. App Storestub Curated software distribution, and a new economy. SMSstub Text messaging, an afterthought that changed communication. Mobile SoCstub Whole systems on one low-power chip. Mobile Paymentsstub The phone as wallet.
Cloud Computing 10
Virtual Machinestub A computer simulated inside another computer. Cloud Computingstub Computing as a metered utility. AWSstub Amazon's 2006 launch that created the cloud market. Containersstub Lightweight, portable packaging for software. Kubernetesstub Google's orchestration system, now the industry default. Hypervisorsstub The layer that lets many machines share one. Serverlessstub Running code without managing machines. Microservicesstub Systems built from small independent services. Infrastructure as Codestub Declaring infrastructure in versioned files. Data Centersstub The buildings where the cloud actually is.
Artificial Intelligence 33
Artificial Intelligencestub The field McCarthy named in 1955. Machine Learningstub Programs that improve from data rather than instruction. Neural Networksstub Layered computation loosely inspired by the brain. Backpropagationstub The algorithm that makes deep networks trainable. Convolutional Neural Networksstub Architecture that made machine vision work. Reinforcement Learningstub Learning by acting and receiving reward. Deep Learningstub Many-layered networks trained on large data. Transformersstub The 2017 architecture underlying modern AI. Attention Mechanismstub Letting a model weigh what matters in its input. Large Language Modelsstub Models trained to predict text, and much else besides. Diffusion Modelsstub Generating images by reversing noise. Retrieval-Augmented Generationstub Grounding generation in retrieved documents. Constitutional AIstub Training a model against an explicit written set of principles. AI Alignmentstub Making systems pursue what we actually intend. AI Interpretabilitystub Understanding what is happening inside a model. Agentic AIstub Models that plan and take actions over time. Multimodal AIstub Models that handle text, image, audio and video together. Perceptronstub Rosenblatt's 1958 learning machine, the first neural net. Expert Systemsstub Rule-based AI, the commercial hope of the 1980s. Symbolic AIstub Reasoning over explicit symbols and rules. RNNs & LSTMstub Networks with memory, the pre-transformer standard for sequences. Word Embeddingsstub Representing meaning as position in vector space. GANsstub Two networks competing to generate realistic data. Mixture of Expertsstub Routing each input to a subset of the model. Scaling Lawsstub The predictable relationship between compute, data and capability. RLHFstub Training models on human preference judgments. Chain-of-Thought Reasoningstub Getting better answers by making models show their work. Fine-Tuningstub Adapting a general model to a specific task. Tokenizationstub How text becomes the units a model actually sees. Computer Visionstub Teaching machines to interpret images. Speech Recognitionstub Turning sound into text. ImageNetstub The dataset and contest that launched deep learning's decade. AlphaGostub The 2016 system that beat Lee Sedol at Go.
Failures & Dead Ends 12
Xerox's Commercialization Failurestub Inventing the personal computer and selling none of it. The AI Wintersstub Two collapses of funding and belief, in the 1970s and late 1980s. Lisp Machinesstub Purpose-built AI hardware made obsolete by general workstations. Intel Itaniumstub A bet on a new architecture that the market declined. Windows Mobile & Nokiastub Two incumbents that saw the iPhone coming and could not turn. Apple Newtonstub The handheld that was right about everything but timing. WebVan & the Dot-Com Buststub The right idea, the wrong decade, and $1.2bn of capital. Google Glass & Google+stub Distribution without desire. IBM OS/2stub The technically better PC operating system that lost anyway. Minitelstub France's national network that worked too well to be replaced. Format Warsstub Betamax, HD-DVD, and how standards actually get chosen. Theranosstub What happens when a story outruns the science.