A curated digital archive of technology history — all tracks combined. Articles, Profiles, and Events.https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/en-usCopyright 2026 isHistory Digital Archiveishistory@proton.me (Ishaan)ishistory@proton.me (Ishaan)60https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/a1-the-ancient-dream-of-artificial-life/https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/a1-the-ancient-dream-of-artificial-life/From bronze giants to clockwork wonders — before computers, the dream of artificial life lived in the human imagination for thousands of years.Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTai-historyancient-automataphilosophymythologygolemMinds & MachinesAncient – 1850https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/a15-the-rise-of-the-thinking-machine/https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/a15-the-rise-of-the-thinking-machine/The deep learning revolution from AlexNet to the Transformer — a cascade of breakthroughs where each advance enabled the next. The fastest AI revolution ever.Sun, 26 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTdeep-learningAI-revolutionTransformercomputer-visionNLPMinds & Machines2012 – 2023https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/a16-the-attention-economy-how-the-transformer-changed-everything/https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/a16-the-attention-economy-how-the-transformer-changed-everything/Why self-attention was the right idea, how it enabled pre-training, and why scaling produced unexpected capabilities. The architecture behind every LLM.Sun, 26 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTTransformerBERTGPTlarge-language-modelspre-trainingMinds & Machines2017 – 2025https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/e15-the-transformer-2017-attention-is-all-you-need/https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/e15-the-transformer-2017-attention-is-all-you-need/In 2017, a Google Brain team asked 'what if attention is all you need?' and built an architecture that became the foundation for every large language model.Sun, 26 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTai-historytransformerattention-mechanismnlpdeep-learninggoogle-brainMinds & Machines2017https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/p15-fei-fei-li/https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/p15-fei-fei-li/She assembled fourteen million labelled images when everyone said no, built ImageNet, and enabled the deep learning revolution. The portrait of its creator.Sun, 26 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTai-historyfei-fei-liimagenetcomputer-visionai-ethicshuman-centered-aiMinds & Machines1975-https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/a10-the-first-ai-winter-when-the-dream-crashed/https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/a10-the-first-ai-winter-when-the-dream-crashed/Funding collapsed, groups dissolved, careers redirected. The full narrative of AI's first great crisis, told through the people who watched the dream crash.Sun, 19 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTAI winterhistory-of-aifunding-crisisLighthill Reportmachine-translationMinds & Machines1973 – 1980https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/a11-expert-systems-ai-learns-to-be-a-specialist/https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/a11-expert-systems-ai-learns-to-be-a-specialist/How expert systems made AI commercially viable — from DENDRAL and MYCIN to XCON, and what the approach revealed about the nature of expertise itself.Sun, 19 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTexpert-systemsknowledge-engineeringMYCINXCONcommercial-AIMinds & Machines1975 – 1990https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/a12-japans-billion-dollar-bet-on-ai/https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/a12-japans-billion-dollar-bet-on-ai/Japan's Fifth Generation Computer Project alarmed the world, spent a decade at ICOT, and quietly failed. The most audacious national AI programme in history.Sun, 19 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTjapan-fifth-generationMITIlogic-programmingPROLOGnational-AI-strategyMinds & Machines1981 – 1992https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/a13-the-second-ai-winter-lightning-strikes-twice/https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/a13-the-second-ai-winter-lightning-strikes-twice/AI's second great contraction — the fall of expert systems, LISP machines, and DARPA funding, and the neural network underground that kept the faith.Sun, 19 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTAI-winterexpert-systemsLISP-machinesneural-networkshistory-of-AIMinds & Machines1987 – 1997https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/a14-the-godfathers-go-underground/https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/a14-the-godfathers-go-underground/Hinton, LeCun, and Bengio during the years neural networks were marginalised — the decades of intellectual courage that kept the research programme alive.Sun, 19 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTdeep-learning-historyGeoffrey-HintonYann-LeCunYoshua-Bengioneural-networksMinds & Machines1987 – 2006https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/a7-the-first-ai-programs-teaching-machines-to-play-games/https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/a7-the-first-ai-programs-teaching-machines-to-play-games/When Samuel's checkers program beat its creator and every demo felt like proof that general machine intelligence was just around the corner.Sun, 19 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTgame-playing-aiArthur Samuelchess-aimachine-learninghistory-of-aiMinds & Machines1950 – 1997https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/a8-eliza-and-the-illusion-of-understanding/https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/a8-eliza-and-the-illusion-of-understanding/What ELIZA revealed about human psychology, language, and the gap between the appearance of understanding and its reality — questions urgent in the age of LLMs.Sun, 19 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTELIZAnatural-language-processingJoseph Weizenbaumphilosophy-of-mindhuman-computer-interactionMinds & Machines1966 – 1980https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/a9-the-optimists-when-ai-was-going-to-solve-everything/https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/a9-the-optimists-when-ai-was-going-to-solve-everything/The AI optimists of the 1960s believed machine intelligence was years away. They were right about the destination, spectacularly wrong about the distance.Sun, 19 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTAI optimismhistory-of-aiMarvin MinskyHerbert SimonAI predictions1960s AIMinds & Machines1960 – 1974https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/e10-backpropagation-goes-mainstream-1986/https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/e10-backpropagation-goes-mainstream-1986/Backpropagation was discovered three times before anyone noticed. The story of the algorithm at the heart of modern AI and the 1986 paper that changed AI.Sun, 19 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTai-historybackpropagationneural-networksgeoffrey-hintondeep-learningMinds & Machines1974-1986https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/e11-deep-blue-vs-kasparov-1997/https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/e11-deep-blue-vs-kasparov-1997/In 1997, a machine defeated the world chess champion. The match that divided history, the controversy, and what it meant for human exceptionalism and AI.Sun, 19 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTai-historydeep-bluechess-aigarry-kasparovibmMinds & Machines1996-1997https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/e12-the-netflix-prize-2006/https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/e12-the-netflix-prize-2006/In 2006 Netflix offered $1M to anyone who could improve its recommendation algorithm by 10%. Three years of innovation, and a solution Netflix never deployed.Sun, 19 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTai-historynetflix-prizerecommender-systemsmachine-learningcollaborative-filteringMinds & Machines2006-2009https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/e13-the-imagenet-project-2009/https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/e13-the-imagenet-project-2009/How Fei-Fei Li built the most important dataset in AI history and the benchmark that made the deep learning revolution possible. The story of ImageNet.Sun, 19 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTai-historyimagenetfei-fei-licomputer-visiondeep-learningMinds & Machines2006-2012https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/e14-alexnet-2012-the-breakthrough-nobody-saw-coming/https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/e14-alexnet-2012-the-breakthrough-nobody-saw-coming/In 2012, a deep network trained on two gaming GPUs shocked the computer vision world with a 10-point improvement. The starting gun of the modern AI era.Sun, 19 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTai-historyalexnetimagenetdeep-learninggeoffrey-hintoncomputer-visionMinds & Machines2012https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/e6-the-first-ai-winter-1974-1980/https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/e6-the-first-ai-winter-1974-1980/The funding cuts, disbanded groups, and stubborn few who kept working through AI's first collapse — and how it shaped everything that came after.Sun, 19 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTai-historyai-winterfunding-crisismachine-translationdarpaMinds & Machines1974-1980https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/e7-the-rise-of-expert-systems-1980/https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/e7-the-rise-of-expert-systems-1980/How MYCIN, XCON, and corporate AI systems made real money by going narrow — AI's first commercial era and the seeds of its second collapse.Sun, 19 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTai-historyexpert-systemsmycinxconknowledge-engineeringMinds & Machines1980-1987https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/e8-japans-fifth-generation-project-1982/https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/e8-japans-fifth-generation-project-1982/Japan's audacious ten-year programme to build AI computers triggered global panic — then quietly failed. A tale of ambition, geopolitics, and misadventure.Sun, 19 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTai-historyjapan-fifth-generationmitilogic-programmingai-raceMinds & Machines1982-1992https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/e9-the-second-ai-winter-1987-1993/https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/e9-the-second-ai-winter-1987-1993/The expert systems boom collapsed, LISP machines imploded, and AI contracted for the second time — while neural network pioneers kept the flame alive.Sun, 19 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTai-historyai-winterexpert-systemslisp-machinesneural-networksMinds & Machines1987-1993https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/p10-frank-rosenblatt/https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/p10-frank-rosenblatt/He built the Perceptron — the first learning machine. Minsky called it a dead end. History proved Rosenblatt right. The most underrated figure in AI history.Sun, 19 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTai-historyfrank-rosenblattperceptronneural-networksdeep-learning-historyMinds & Machines1928-1971https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/p11-geoffrey-hinton/https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/p11-geoffrey-hinton/He kept working on neural networks when everyone said it was dead. He built deep learning. Then he quit Google to warn the world he feared what he had built.Sun, 19 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTai-historygeoffrey-hintondeep-learningneural-networksbackpropagationai-safetyMinds & Machines1947-https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/p12-yann-lecun/https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/p12-yann-lecun/He invented convolutional neural networks and became Meta's AI architect. The most argumentative Godfather of Deep Learning — and why he's usually right.Sun, 19 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTai-historyyann-lecunconvolutional-networksdeep-learningmeta-aiai-safetyMinds & Machines1960-https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/p13-yoshua-bengio/https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/p13-yoshua-bengio/Third Godfather of Deep Learning — foundational work on attention and generative models, and his evolution into AI's most prominent voice for safety and ethics.Sun, 19 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTai-historyyoshua-bengiodeep-learningai-safetyneural-networksmontrealMinds & Machines1964-https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/p14-jurgen-schmidhuber/https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/p14-jurgen-schmidhuber/He invented LSTM — the architecture behind speech recognition and translation. He argues he deserves more credit. Why he might be right, and why it's hard.Sun, 19 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTai-historyjurgen-schmidhuberlstmrecurrent-neural-networksdeep-learning-historyMinds & Machines1963-https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/p6-john-mccarthy/https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/p6-john-mccarthy/He organised Dartmouth, coined 'artificial intelligence', invented LISP, and founded Stanford AI Lab. The complicated legacy of the man who gave AI its name.Sun, 19 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTai-historyjohn-mccarthylispsymbolic-aistanford-ai-labMinds & Machines1927-2011https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/p7-marvin-minsky/https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/p7-marvin-minsky/His towering influence on early AI, his overconfident predictions, the devastating Perceptrons critique, and the Society of Mind. AI's most complex figure.Sun, 19 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTai-historymarvin-minskymit-ai-labperceptronssociety-of-mindMinds & Machines1927-2016https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/p8-newell-and-simon/https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/p8-newell-and-simon/The Logic Theorist, the General Problem Solver, the cognitive revolution, and a Nobel Prize. The most consequential scientific partnership in AI history.Sun, 19 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTai-historyallen-newellherbert-simoncognitive-sciencesymbolic-aiMinds & Machines1916-2001 / 1927-1992https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/p9-joseph-weizenbaum/https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/p9-joseph-weizenbaum/He built the first chatbot to show how shallow conversation was — and watched in horror as people fell in love with it. The prophet of AI ethics nobody heard.Sun, 19 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTai-historyjoseph-weizenbaumelizaai-ethicsphilosophy-of-aiMinds & Machines1923-2008https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/a4-ada-lovelace-and-the-first-algorithm/https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/a4-ada-lovelace-and-the-first-algorithm/She wrote the world's first computer program in 1843. A deep dive into Ada Lovelace's Notes on the Analytical Engine and the Bernoulli number algorithm.Sat, 18 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTAda Lovelacealgorithmshistory-of-computingmathematicsanalytical-engineMinds & Machines1800 – 1850https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/a5-alan-turing-the-man-who-imagined-everything/https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/a5-alan-turing-the-man-who-imagined-everything/From the Turing Machine to Bletchley Park to morphogenesis — how one mind laid the conceptual foundations of an entire civilisation's technology.Sat, 18 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTAlan Turingfoundations-of-computingartificial-intelligencehistory-of-sciencephilosophy-of-mindMinds & Machines1930 – 1954https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/a6-the-summer-that-named-ai/https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/a6-the-summer-that-named-ai/The 1956 Dartmouth Conference — who was in the room, what they argued about, what they got wrong, and how one summer gave AI its name and its overconfidence.Sat, 18 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTDartmouth Conferencehistory-of-aiJohn McCarthyMarvin Minskyfoundations-of-aiMinds & Machines1956https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/e4-eliza-1966/https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/e4-eliza-1966/In 1966 a pattern-matching program became the world's first chatbot. People told it secrets and begged not to have it turned off. Its creator was horrified.Sat, 18 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTai-historyelizanlpjoseph-weizenbaumpsychology-of-aiMinds & Machines1964-1966https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/e5-the-lighthill-report-1973/https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/e5-the-lighthill-report-1973/In 1973, mathematician James Lighthill wrote a review so devastating it caused governments to pull AI funding, sending the field into its first winter.Sat, 18 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTai-historylighthill-reportai-winterbritish-aifunding-crisisMinds & Machines1973https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/p4-norbert-wiener/https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/p4-norbert-wiener/He invented cybernetics and warned about automation destroying human labour — in 1950. The forgotten genius who saw everything coming and nobody listened.Sat, 18 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTai-historynorbert-wienercyberneticsai-ethicsfeedback-controlMinds & Machines1894-1964https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/p5-claude-shannon/https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/p5-claude-shannon/In 1948 a Bell Labs engineer published a paper that gave the entire digital age its mathematical foundation. He then built juggling robots and rode a unicycle.Sat, 18 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTai-historyclaude-shannoninformation-theorybell-labsfoundations-of-aiMinds & Machines1916-2001https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/e3-the-logic-theorist-1956/https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/e3-the-logic-theorist-1956/In 1955, a program proved a mathematical theorem for the first time. Its creators believed they had cracked intelligence. The story of the first AI program.Mon, 13 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTai-historysymbolic-aitheorem-provingallen-newellherbert-simonMinds & Machines1955-1956https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/p3-john-von-neumann/https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/p3-john-von-neumann/He spoke eight languages, memorized entire books, and designed the architecture every computer still uses today. The astonishing life of von Neumann.Sun, 12 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTai-historyjohn-von-neumanncomputer-architecturegame-theorymanhattan-projectMinds & Machines1903-1957https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/a3-the-philosophers-who-asked-can-machines-think/https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/a3-the-philosophers-who-asked-can-machines-think/Leibniz dreamed of a calculus of thought, Pascal built the first calculator, Descartes asked if mechanism had limits — questions we still wrestle with.Sat, 11 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTphilosophyhistory-of-ideasfoundationsmind-body-problemdualismMinds & Machines1600 – 1950https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/e2-the-turing-test-1950/https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/e2-the-turing-test-1950/In 1950, a mathematician asked 'can machines think?' and proposed a test. The test sparked a debate. Seventy-five years later, the debate has not ended.Mon, 06 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTai-historyturing-testphilosophyalan-turingimitation-gameMinds & Machines1950https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/p2-alan-turing/https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/p2-alan-turing/He broke the Nazi's unbreakable code, designed the modern computer, asked whether machines could think — then was destroyed by the country he saved.Sun, 05 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTai-historyalan-turingturing-testbletchley-parkcryptographyMinds & Machines1912-1954https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/a2-clockwork-wonders-the-automata-era/https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/a2-clockwork-wonders-the-automata-era/European craftsmen built mechanical marvels that walked, wrote and played music. The automata era and the question it forced the world to ask.Sat, 04 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTautomatavaucansonclockworkhistorymechanical-lifeMinds & Machines1600 – 1800https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/e1-the-dartmouth-conference-1956/https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/e1-the-dartmouth-conference-1956/In the summer of 1956, ten men gathered at Dartmouth and gave a name to the dream of thinking machines. The week Artificial Intelligence was born.Sat, 28 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTai-historydartmouthfounding-of-aijohn-mccarthymarvin-minskyMinds & Machines1956https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/p1-ada-lovelace/https://astro-project-e55.pages.dev/blog/p1-ada-lovelace/She wrote the world's first computer program in 1843 for a machine that didn't exist yet. Then history forgot her for a hundred years.Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTai-historyada-lovelaceprogramminganalytical-enginepioneerMinds & Machines1815-1852