Top all-time · #9206
Nemanja Trifunovic
Personal blog · nemanjatrifunovic.substack.comprogrammingsystemshistory
Nemanja Trifunovic writes Programming at the right level, a personal blog at nemanjatrifunovic.substack.com about programming, systems and history. Since 2025, 8 different Hacker News readers have linked it 55 times, most often “History of the Gem Desktop Environment”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-24, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (5) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link this author's Substack histories of desktop OS and software, including the history of GEM, the origins of 86-DOS, and the late arrival of CP/M-86.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 5 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Posts about programming, computer history and retro computing.
Most-linked posts?
- History of the Gem Desktop Environment5 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2025-09-13
- Birth of 86-DOS3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2025-04-27
- The Late Arrival of 16-Bit CP/M – By Nemanja Trifunovic3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2025-12-29
- Kay Nishi and the Meeting That Started MS-DOS2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2026-05-14
- Why IBM Turned to Microsoft for Basic2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2026-04-12
- Starlink from 19842 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2026-07-11
- The Curious Case of Jupiter Ace2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2025-03-31
- I believe 6502 instruction set is a good first assembly language2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2025-02-06
- PDP-10 and Microcomputers – By Nemanja Trifunovic2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2025-11-08
- Taming Intel's "Brain Damaged" Chip2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2026-10-25
What Hacker News says?
Not bad, but I like this one better: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/06/ibm-pc-history-part-... And specifically for the IBM choosing Microsoft: https://nemanjatrifunovic.substack.com/p/why-ibm-turned-to-m...
Comment linking /p/why-ibm-turned-to-microsoft-for-basic
on “The IBM PC, Part 1: Arrival”Submitted I believe 6502 instruction set is a good first assembly language as a story · 247 points
HN discussionThere was a rumor of MS and DRI having a non-aggression pact before 1981: https://nemanjatrifunovic.substack.com/p/gary-kildall-bill-g...
Comment linking /p/gary-kildall-bill-gates-and-the-gentlemans
on “Microsoft surprises with its first server Linux distribution: Azure Linux 4.0”Submitted When Compiler Optimizations Hurt Performance as a story · 91 points
HN discussionYup. Nemanja Trifunovic's recent history is pretty good, I thought. https://nemanjatrifunovic.substack.com/p/history-of-the-gem-...
Comment linking /p/history-of-the-gem-desktop-environment
on “Screenshots of Old Desktop OSes”Submitted History of the Gem Desktop Environment as a story · 76 points
HN discussionThey didn't even sue DRI, just threatened to sue: https://nemanjatrifunovic.substack.com/p/history-of-the-gem-...
Comment linking /p/history-of-the-gem-desktop-environment
on “Was Windows 1.0's lack of overlapping windows a legal or a technical matter?”Submitted Birth of 86-DOS as a story · 49 points
HN discussionYou are describing MS-DOS. As article states, this used DRI's Concurrent DOS, which was basically rebranded MP/M-86 with a basic MS-DOS compatibility layer. More about Concurrent DOS, eg here: https://nemanjatrifunovic.substack.com/i/196574463/quest-for...
Comment linking /i/196574463/quest-for-concurrency
on “Starlink from 1984”Submitted The Curious Case of Jupiter Ace as a story · 43 points
HN discussionHere is a different recent -- and IMHO much better -- history which covers that: https://nemanjatrifunovic.substack.com/p/history-of-the-gem-...
Comment linking /p/history-of-the-gem-desktop-environment
on “What Happened to Gem?”Submitted A Tale of Two Red-Bearded Visionaries as a story · 28 points
HN discussionI wonder why GEM is back on bloggers' radar again? Last September, Nemanja Trifunovic did a good in-depth history, here: https://nemanjatrifunovic.substack.com/p/history-of-the-gem-... He missed out on the recent history of the environment, and at the time, I wrote a blog post adding more info on what happened next: https://liam-on-linux.dreamwidth.org/96552.html You do mention OpenGEM and FreeGEM, but not what's in…
Comment linking /p/history-of-the-gem-desktop-environment
on “What Happened to Gem?”Submitted Decoding UTF-8. Part III: Determining Sequence Length – A Lookup Table as a story · 9 points
HN discussionYou submitted the wrong URL. I think you meant to submit https://nemanjatrifunovic.substack.com/p/birth-of-86-dos
Comment linking /p/birth-of-86-dos
on “Birth of 86-DOS”Submitted Disassembly with GDB as a story · 7 points
HN discussionI don't want to just quibble for the fun of it but so much more of this is wrong than right that it's downright misleading. > I'm pretty sure CP/M 86 was already a thing. Yes it was. Launched after the IBM PC, though, which is why SCP wrote QDOS which they licensed to MS and became MS-DOS. How and why it was late: https://nemanjatrifunovic.substack.com/p/the-late-arrival-of... > I believe there was even Concurrent C…
Comment linking /p/the-late-arrival-of-16-bit-cpm
on “CP/M-386 – CP/M for 386 protected mode, derived from CP/M‑68K”Submitted 6502 Is a Good Starting Point for Beginning Assembly Programming as a story · 6 points
HN discussionSubmitted How Much of CP/M's Design Ended Up in MS‑DOS? as a story · 6 points
HN discussionSubmitted PDP-10 and Microcomputers – By Nemanja Trifunovic as a story · 6 points
HN discussionSubmitted Birth of 86-DOS as a story · 5 points
HN discussionSubmitted Taming Intel's "Brain Damaged" Chip as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted History of the Gem Desktop Environment as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted When Compilers Disagree About UTF‑8 as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted The Peak and Collapse of Digital Research as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted PDP-10 and Microcomputers as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Decoding UTF-8 as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted When Compiler Optimizations Hurt Performance as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted The Curious Case of Jupiter Ace as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted When Compilers Disagree About UTF‑8 as a story · 2 points
HN discussion