{"podcast":{"title":"Conversations","slug":"conversations-320217","podcast_index_feed_id":320217,"rss_url":"https://www.abc.net.au/feeds/7711104/podcast.xml","website_url":"https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/conversations/","image_url":"https://live-production.wcms.abc-cdn.net.au/9419a7d446ad3f4620983df5d8d048f1.jpg?src","author":"ABC Australia","episode_count":2000,"summary":"Conversations draws you deeper into the life story of someone you may have heard about, but never met. Journey into their world, joining them on epic adventures to unfamiliar places, back in time to wild moments of history, and into their deepest memories, to be moved by personal stories of resilience and redemption. Hosted by Richard Fidler and Sarah Kanowski, Conversations is the ABC's most popular long-form interview program. Every day we explore the vast tapestry of human experience, weaving together narratives from history, science, art, and personal storytelling. Conversations Live is coming to the stage! Join Sarah Kanowski and Richard Fidler for an unmissable night of unforgettable stories, behind-the-scenes secrets, and surprise guests. Australia’s most-loved podcast — live, up close, and in the moment. Find out more at the Conversations website.","last_synced_at":"2026-09-24T00:20:44.125501+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/conversations-320217"},"episode":{"title":"The radical history of personal computing—looms, coding, beige boxes and AI","slug":"the-radical-history-of-personal-computing-looms-coding-beige-boxes-and-ai","published_at":"2026-09-18T01:00:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/conversations-320217/the-radical-history-of-personal-computing-looms-coding-beige-boxes-and-ai","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/conversations-320217","url":"https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/conversations/mel-huang-buntine-history-of-personal-computing/107148762","audio_url":"https://mediacore-live-production.akamaized.net/audio/02/oi/Z/qk.mp3","summary":"Mel Huang Buntine on how computers started entering our homes, and the beige box of a machine that changed her own life. Personal computers are so ubiquitous now, it's hard to imagine a time when computers were inaccessible to everyday people. For decades, computers were the size of rooms, and they were used for specialist tasks like processing large data sets for researchers, or sending men to the moon. But by the 1980s computers had become smaller and more affordable, and people started bringing them into their homes. From this point on, how everyday people interacted with technology changed forever. Mel Huang Buntine is a designer and technologist who was gifted her first computer as a tween in 1990s Melbourne. Mel lived in a multigenerational home with her mother, her grandparents and her great-grandmother, all of whom had escaped the Cambodian genocide as refugees. They couldn't understand why Mel was obsessed with this machine, but it completely opened up Mel's world and changed her life. Now with anxiety growing around AI, surveillance and mega tech companies, Mel is trying to get people to understand the history of computers and how they work. She hopes this will give back to people a sense of agency over machines, rather than feeling powerless to the opacity of algorithms and large language models. Radical Computing is exhibiting at the National Communication Museum in Melbourne from 19 September 2026, until 21February 2027. This episode of Conversations was produced by Meggie Morris. Executive Producer is Nicola Harrison. It explores technology, artificial intelligence, Facebook, Instagram, social media, coding, making a website, HTML, CSS, PS5, playstation, games console, computer games, desktop games, Apple iOs 27, Mac, Macbook, Mac versus PC, IBM, Commodor…","meta_description":"Mel Huang Buntine on how computers started entering our homes, and the beige box of a machine that changed her own life. Personal computers are so ubiquit…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":3189,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/conversations-320217/episodes/the-radical-history-of-personal-computing-looms-coding-beige-boxes-and-ai/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/conversations-320217/the-radical-history-of-personal-computing-looms-coding-beige-boxes-and-ai.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}