beanz Magazine

A fun, silly way to share your coding trials and triumphs with friends — because everything is better with kittens!

Six women were hired to use their math skills to program the ENIAC computer. They called themselves The First Programmers Club.

In the old days, before video game systems had cameras and sensors, programmers had to get creative.

The Wayback Machine lets you travel back in time to see old websites. Plus the Internet Archive has thousands of vintage games, software, books, and more.

Dive into the first “console wars” and learn how more bits led to bigger and better games.

How rural America connected itself to the phone grid using barbed wire, glass bottles, and even corncobs!

How 3D printing could help us get to Mars, and create new tools, homes, spacecrafts — even organs!

No discussion of design is complete without the history of lorem ipsum. It's more than placeholder text you stuff into a visual design.

Learn some of the tricks game developers use to simulate an extra dimension.

We might think robots are a modern invention. But al-Jazari created amazing automatons in the thirteenth century. Today we would call him a maker.

These three strange words keep popping up in coding tutorials. What’s their story?

A long time ago, before the internet, games were stored on cassette tapes — just like music! Well, Sort of.

A short history of virtual and augmented reality with lots of links to learn more.

How Microsoft’s funny little assistant led to the AI we know and love today.

A wacky story about connectivity, Danish kings, and the need for good dentists.

The first time AI beat humans at their own game.

Battery history is a critical part of the history of technology. Without stored electricity, there would be no electronics.

How science and tech led to an exciting discovery in one of the most dangerous areas of space.

How did video games become popular before the internet? It’s all about shareware, floppy disks, and human cleverness!

What’s allowed in an e-mail address? Let’s break down the syntax.

Who chooses new emojis? And what’s coming in the next batch?

Learn about the origin of Unix time, the calendar system used by digital devices.

Could a human brain be simulated by a computer? Would it think and feel like we do?

Controllers have come a long way in 50 years. Let’s appreciate the bulky, awkward ancestors that led us here!

This Canadian experiment used a robot to explore how people respond to robots and technology.

While everybody on the planet has used a web browser, many people don't know about web browser history.

Believe it or not, computers and keyboards were not invented together.

The many pieces that make up AI have been built and used for thousands of years in many cultures.

An essay from the 1990s explores how software can be built like a cathedral or in groups like a bazaar.