Share

cover art for Know a Little More

Know a Little More

DTNS host Tom Merritt dives deep into tech topics to help you understand what you need to know about them.


Latest episode

  • 10. About Xerox Alto

    11:55||Season 11, Ep. 10
    A computer designed to be used with a mouse, keyboard, monitor, and printer could sound like any computer you've used, all made possible by a graphical user interface used on the Xerox Alto. Tom explores its history.Featuring Tom Merritt.Full episode transcript here.

More episodes

View all episodes

  • 9. About Smalltalk

    12:17||Season 11, Ep. 9
    The way you interact with computers was probably shaped by a small team working at Xerox in the 1970s. Tom explains the history of Smalltalk.Featuring Tom Merritt.Full transcript here.
  • 8. About Laser Printers

    12:58||Season 11, Ep. 8
    From room-sized machines to barely an inconvenience on your desk, laser printers are in nearly every office. But where did they start? Tom explores the origins of the laser printer.Featuring Tom Merritt.Full transcript here.
  • 7. About Ethernet

    16:46||Season 11, Ep. 7
    Computers talk to each other via networking, most commonly over a wired ethernet connection. Tom explains how that started and why it was such a breakthrough.Featuring Tom Merritt.Full transcript here.
  • 6. About Xerox PARC

    15:24||Season 11, Ep. 6
    In 1969, the chief scientist at Xerox, Jack Goldman, decided to found a west-coast research center in Palo Alto, right down the road from Engelbart's SRI. Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center or PARC was far enough from headquarters in Rochester, New York, that scientists could feel a little freer to experiment.Featuring Tom Merritt.Full show transcription here.
  • 5. About GPUs

    12:09||Season 11, Ep. 5
    Tom explains what GPUs are, why they are different than CPUs, and how they kinda just evolved into a product.Featuring Tom Merritt.Full episode transcript here.
  • 4. About Login

    09:15||Season 11, Ep. 4
    Tom discusses the origin of the term "log in", it's early use, and how it became something most of us do every day.Featuring Tom Merritt.Full transcript can be found here.