How the RESISTORS put computing into 1960s counter-culture
3 comments
·December 17, 2025anthk
Trac64 implementation:
throwaway81523
Web site is still up, resistors.org . It looks like John and Margy Levine (first generation Resistors) are running it now. I think Dave Fox (2nd generation I guess) took care of it before. The linked article looks pretty good. There were a bunch of paper archives kept around that are probably still interesting. I don't know who has them now or if they still exist.
I didn't know about Trac64 or that Trac even really had the concept of bits. It was all string operations, including string arithmetic in arbitrary precision, I thought. But I never used it much. It could be seen as a weird take on both Forth and Lisp.
#(ps,#(rs))
> They borrowed an acoustic coupler—a forerunner of the computer modem—and connected it to a nearby pay phone
The acoustic coupler is mounted on a modem, and is just the cradle where you rest a handset. The device is not a forerunner of a modem, it is a modem.