Top all-time · #153
The Digital Antiquarian
Personal blog · filfre.netgameshistory
The Digital Antiquarian is a personal blog at filfre.net about games and history. Since 2011, 281 different Hacker News readers have linked it 965 times, most often “The Digital Antiquarian”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-30, and you can follow it by feed.
Sometimes recommended · 12 of 40 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
HN readers link this as a long, detailed history of computer and adventure games, from Infocom and Sierra to Windows and the TRS-80. Several comments call its articles thorough and well written.
- Recommended for · 12 comments
- Called very well written, thorough, detailed and fascinating; the Windows and Dune series are praised.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 40 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- The Digital Antiquarian13 people · 14 mentions · first linked 2018-04-21
- Doing Windows, Part 1: MS-DOS and Its Discontents10 people · 12 mentions · first linked 2018-06-22
- Doing Windows, Part 6: Look and Feel6 people · 8 mentions · first linked 2018-07-27
- /sitemap/6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2015-12-07
- /sitemap/5 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2018-07-22
- /5 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2012-12-09
- The Hobbit – The Digital Antiquarian (2012)5 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2018-09-22
- Tie Fighter: The Second Coming of Star Wars5 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2021-02-05
- Transport Tycoon5 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2020-10-02
- SimCity: Will Wright's City in a Box5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2016-06-10
What Hacker News says?
Likewise. But it was so hard to get any work out of Adams, apparently [1], that it's no great surprise Bureaucracy only happened in the medium of IF. Perhaps it's time for a reimagining - I could see it working really well as a collection of "websites" with "live chats" and "emails" and so forth, borrowing tools from the "alternate-reality game" style of organic viral marketing and turning them to an altogether nobl…
Comment linking /2015/08/bureaucracy/
on “Before buying a NYT subscription, here's what it'll take to cancel it”Submitted Riven as a story · 570 points
HN discussionThat's funny you bring up the PS3, because my first reaction to the parent commenter and the OP video was how I remember thinking things couldn't get much better than the PS3 demos [0] – which now look comparatively primitive – but I've had that same feeling with PS4 and now PS5. But PS5 really does seem to be getting close to real-time interactive realism. But I agree with you that I expected games to be much "bett…
Comment linking /2019/02/ultima-vii/
on “A first look at Unreal Engine 5”Submitted The Game of Everything, Part 1: Making Civilization as a story · 552 points
HN discussionhttp://www.filfre.net/sitemap/ The Digital Antiquarian - a very well written running history of computer games, especially adventure-y ones from the beginning to about 1989 now.
Comment linking /sitemap/
on “Ask HN: What is your favorite internet rabbit hole?”Submitted Half-Life as a story · 547 points
HN discussionSince he might not be known to most (especially a younger audience), the author is a writer best known for many of the Choose Your Own Adventure books that were hugely successful in the 80s. Jimmy Maher wrote about them recently https://www.filfre.net/2025/09/choose-your-own-adventure/
Comment linking /2025/09/choose-your-own-adventure/
on “Nine things I learned in ninety years”Submitted X-COM as a story · 449 points
HN discussionIf you are interested in the history of games there is an excellent blog here: https://www.filfre.net/2011/06/the-trash-80-part-3/ Have been following it for years and would recommend reading it all the way through. Maybe even get an idea for the next project :)
Comment linking /2011/06/the-trash-80-part-3/
on “Show HN: I'm 48 and finally learning how to be a game developer”Submitted Railroad Tycoon as a story · 378 points
HN discussionthanks for the link! i really liked the series, but forgot to bookmark it and couldn't find it after. the Windows series starts here: https://www.filfre.net/2018/06/doing-windows-part-1-ms-dos-a... honestly, it could probably be made into a Halt And Catch Fire-style miniseries, it's so good. actually i think i'll re-read it now :) "New Tricks For An Old Z-Machine" was great too!
Comment linking /2018/06/doing-windows-part-1-ms-dos-and-its-discontents/
on “I wrote Task Manager and I just remembered something”Submitted Lode Runner as a story · 367 points
HN discussionThis is a great one: https://www.filfre.net He did an incredibly thorough nine-part series on the history of Windows from DOS through 3.1 and the antitrust cases. It was fascinating. There's tons of other stuff here too.
Comment linking /
on “I wrote Task Manager and I just remembered something”Submitted Day of the Tentacle as a story · 347 points
HN discussionGreat thread, found lots of people to add to my feedly. Surprised to see no one has yet mentioned https://filfre.net — The Digital Antiquarian — a frequently upvoted domain: https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=filfre.net
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: Favorite Blogs by Individuals?”Submitted Starcraft (A History in Two Acts) as a story · 324 points
HN discussionWhy shouldn't he? When did we decide to let Nintendo, pardon me, Apple, dictate our digital lives? - - - - - https://www.filfre.net/2016/04/generation-nintendo/ > In a landmark ruling against Tengen in March of 1991, Judge Fern Smith stated that Nintendo had the right to “exclude others” from the NES if they so chose, thus providing the legal soil on which many more walled gardens would be tilled in the years to com…
Comment linking /2016/04/generation-nintendo/
on “Google collects 20 times more telemetry from Android devices than Apple from iOS”Submitted Ultima VIII – How to destroy a gaming franchise in one easy step as a story · 324 points
HN discussionI haven't read that much about Woz, but from what I gather he was brilliant, but his code (or hardware) wasn't "clean". He did have great insights leading to performance, but some stuff sounds fairly ridiculous today, like the stuff he did for Apple II's color display: https://www.filfre.net/2011/10/mystery-house-part-1/ Basically: brilliant, but very quirky.
Comment linking /2011/10/mystery-house-part-1/
on “Paul Buchheit on Joining Google, How to Become a Great Engineer, and Happiness”Submitted Bullfrog After Populous as a story · 321 points
HN discussionA very thorough review of the game on the Digital Antiquarian, including photos of the packaging: https://www.filfre.net/2013/11/hitchhiking-the-galaxy-infoco... On the same site, an exquisitely detailed account of how the Hitchhiker's game came to be: https://www.filfre.net/2013/11/the-computerized-hitchhikers/
Comment linking /2013/11/the-computerized-hitchhikers/
on “Source code for Zork, Hitchhiker’s Guide, and other Infocom games”Submitted Heroes of Might and Magic as a story · 310 points
HN discussionThe box art calls it Interactive Fiction: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/ac/Zork_I_box_ar... EDIT: Some more info on the origins; apparently it was first used by an early creator of such games (Robert Lafore), and then picked up by Infocom: https://www.filfre.net/2011/09/robert-lafores-interactive-fi...
Comment linking /2011/09/robert-lafores-interactive-fiction/
on “Source code for Zork, Hitchhiker’s Guide, and other Infocom games”Submitted Grim Fandango as a story · 309 points
HN discussionWe actually have Nintendo to blame for this whole thing. They started the walled garden situation, and people seem oblivious to it and love them as a company. https://www.filfre.net/2016/04/generation-nintendo/ -> > In a landmark ruling against Tengen in March of 1991, Judge Fern Smith stated that Nintendo had the right to “exclude others” from the NES if they so chose, thus providing the legal soil on which many mo…
Comment linking /2016/04/generation-nintendo/
on “Apple to kill Epic’s accounts on Friday the 28th”Submitted Railroad Tycoon II as a story · 293 points
HN discussionOS/2 existed for quite a while before Warp came about. Warp was IBM trying to salvage a sinking ship more than anything else. http://www.filfre.net/2016/08/ibms-new-flavor/ OS/2 was to go along with the PS/2. A update on the PC platform that was much more bespoke IBM compared to the largely assembled from off the shelf parts that was the PC/AT.
Comment linking /2016/08/ibms-new-flavor/
on “Android overtakes Windows as the internet’s most used operating system”Submitted The End of Sierra as We Knew It, Part 1: The Acquisition as a story · 286 points
HN discussion> So you split it into chunks and download the bits you need as you go. at last, the renaissance of the microcomputer programmers (like the COBOL renaissance of the mainframe programmers)! that kind of technique was common back in the 80s to get things done http://www.filfre.net/2017/04/the-640-k-barrier/
Comment linking /2017/04/the-640-k-barrier/
on “WebAssembly: Mozilla Won”Submitted EverQuest as a story · 281 points
HN discussion
