History of computing Videos Recommended on Hacker News (188)
History of computing is one of the 150 topics Hacker News readers organize their video recommendations around. These 188 videos each earned real recommendations in real HN threads between 2007 and 2026 — 537 recommendations in total — and they're ranked by how many separate months the community kept coming back to them, not by view count.
Computing history: early computers, mainframes, Bletchley Park, ENIAC, Xerox PARC, Unix history, minicomputers, personal computer revolution, historical lectures and museum restorations.
Why HN keeps sending people here — on AT&T Archives: Similiarities of Wave Behavior (Bonus Edition): “By far the best introduction to the subject of waves of any sort.” — an HN commenter, 2019.
Type
TalkLectureDocumentaryExplainerDemoTutorialInterviewCommentaryComedyMusicPodcastsNews & reportingCoursesFeatures
Evergreen only
15 mo on HNAT&T Archives: Similiarities of Wave Behavior (Bonus Edition)
14 mo on HNMicro Men - 720p (2009)
11 mo on HNLight Years Ahead | The 1969 Apollo Guidance Computer
12 mo on HNMechanical Computer (All Parts) - Basic Mechanisms In Fire Control Computers
12 mo on HNProject Code Rush - The Beginnings of Netscape / Mozilla Documentary
11 mo on HNBret Victor The Future of Programming
11 mo on HNAlan Kay - Normal Considered Harmful
10 mo on HNVCF East: Ken Thompson interviewed by Brian Kernighan
11 mo on HNU.S. NAVY BASIC MECHANISMS OF FIRE CONTROL COMPUTERS MECHANICAL COMPUTER INSTRUCTIONAL FILM 27794
10 mo on HNAlan Kay's tribute to Ted Nelson at "Intertwingled" Festival
8 mo on HNThe Mother of All Demos, presented by Douglas Engelbart (1968)
8 mo on HNAT&T Archives: The UNIX Operating System
7 mo on HN34C3 - The Ultimate Apollo Guidance Computer Talk
7 mo on HNAlan Kay, 2015: Power of Simplicity
7 mo on HNUnix and Google
6 mo on HNApollo Guidance Computer Part 1: Restoring the computer that put man on the Moon
6 mo on HN(1/4) Intro/History: Introducing a 100-year-old mechanical computer
6 mo on HNSecret History of Silicon Valley
7 mo on HNHow to Invent the Future I - Stanford CS183F: Startup School
5 mo on HNJames Burke Connections, Ep. 4 "Faith in Numbers"
5 mo on HNBuilding The World's First Computer - Greeks, Clocks and Rockets - Antikythera Mechanism Episode 1
5 mo on HNEric Bier Demonstrates Cedar
6 mo on HNHow to Invent the Future II - Stanford CS183F: Startup School
5 mo on HNUsing a 1930 Teletype as a Linux Terminal
5 mo on HNIvan Sutherland Sketchpad Demo 1963
4 mo on HNMouse Cursor History (and why I made my own)
4 mo on HNThe Web That Never Was - Dylan Beattie
5 mo on HNAdmiral Grace Hopper Explains the Nanosecond
5 mo on HNTed Nelson demonstrates Xanadu Space
5 mo on HN2 1 1 Jason Scott Rescuing The Prince of Persia from the sands of time
5 mo on HNThe Most Powerful Computers You've Never Heard Of
5 mo on HNUNIX: Making Computers Easier To Use -- AT&T Archives film from 1982, Bell Laboratories
5 mo on HNIBM Selectric Typewriter & its digital to analogue converter
5 mo on HNMiniDisc - An Appreciation
5 mo on HNSymbolics Lisp Machine demo Jan 2013
5 mo on HNAvie Tevanian: CMU math whiz goes from Mach to NeXT to Apple Software Chief | Oral History Part 1
Also discussed on Hacker News (43)
Mentioned in HN threads about history of computing, though never formally recommended:
1984 Apple's Macintosh Commercial (HD) · Lucid Energize Demo VHS 1993 · Automatic Hamburger Machine - 50 Years Ahead of Its Time! · The Final Demonstration of the Xerox 'Star' computer · Steve Jobs - NeXT marketing strategy video 1991 · Steve Jobs and Bill Gates Together at D5 Conference 2007 · Xerox Star User Interface (1982) 2 of 2 · The IBM 1401 makes "music" · Ernst Dickmanns’ VaMoRs Mercedes Van, 1986-2003 · GE Walking Truck - Cybernetic Anthropomorphous Machine (CAM) 1969. · The Machine to Build the Machines - NeXT · Xerox Star User Interface: An overview · ALAIN COLMERAUER L'AVENTURE PROLOG · Flashback! The Internet In 1995 | Archives | TODAY · 1968 “Mother of All Demos” by SRI’s Doug Engelbart and Team · Bill Gates demonstrates Visual Basic (1991) · Bill Gates, Windows 98, Blue Screen of Death · How Steve Jobs got the ideas of GUI from XEROX · Apple - 1984 · The Computer Chronicles - The Internet (1993) · Oral History of Bjarne Stroustrup · Why You Can't Name A File CON In Windows · An Earthshaking Announcement · Bill Gates explains this “internet” thing #letterman · Mercury-Redstone 1 Launch failure (MR-1) · Upgrading From Windows 1.0 to Windows 8 On Actual Hardware · SGI IRIS 2400 (1985) · Etak Navigator Tour & Demo · LGR Oddware - MiniDisc Data Storage: Sony MDH-10 · The Computer Designed To Die In Microseconds · KIDS REACT TO OLD COMPUTERS · The Voder: 1939, the worlds first electronic voice synthesizer · The Editor of a Lifetime · Apple II Forever · The World Premiere of the Amiga (1985, Andy Warhol, Debbie Harry) · Penn and Teller's Lab Scam · Introduction to Microsoft Excel 1990 with Jan Brehm · Oral History of Steve Naroff Part 1, Session 1 · Symbolics Space Cadet keyboard review (Honeywell Hall effect 4B3E) · LilithComdexDemo · Steve Jobs The Lost Interview · Microsoft Windows 1.0 with Steve Ballmer (1986) · Tomorrow's World: Mobile Phone 13 September 1979 - BBC