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
5 mo on HNGET LAMP: The Text Adventure Documentary
4 mo on HNDoomed: The Embers of Amiga FPS
4 mo on HNHow an Atomic Clock Really Works: Inside the HP 5061A Cesium Clock
4 mo on HNBBS The Documentary: Episode 1 of 8: BAUD (The Beginning)
4 mo on HNJames Burke Legend Connections 1 The Trigger Effect
4 mo on HN"A Political History of X" - Keith Packard (LCA 2020)
4 mo on HNSYMBOLICS S-PACKAGES 3D GRAPHICS AND ANIMATION DEMO
4 mo on HNAlto System Project: Dan Ingalls demonstrates Smalltalk
4 mo on HNJoe Armstrong - Keynote: The Forgotten Ideas in Computer Science - Code BEAM SF 2018
4 mo on HNKeynote: Begin...End?
4 mo on HNFlaw in the Enigma Code - Numberphile
4 mo on HNAPL demonstration 1975
3 mo on HNColossus - The Greatest Secret in the History of Computing
4 mo on HNXanadu Basics 1a - VISIBLE CONNECTION
3 mo on HNARCHIVE TEAM: A Distributed Preservation of Service Attack
3 mo on HNThe REAL Story On Why Space Cadet Pinball Was Removed (ft. Windows on Itanium)
3 mo on HNSketchpad, by Dr. Ivan Sutherland with comments by Alan Kay
3 mo on HNTed Nelson in Herzog's "Lo and Behold"
3 mo on HNBirth of BASIC
3 mo on HNHalt and Catch Fire - Sales Call [ "A16" Scene ]
3 mo on HNSeymour Papert 1983
3 mo on HNA Narrative History of BSD, Dr. Kirk McKusick
3 mo on HNMorris Chang, in conversation with Jen-Hsun Huang
3 mo on HNThe Mind Behind Windows: Dave Cutler
2 mo on HNErlang: The Movie (Fixed Audio)
3 mo on HN"Uptime 15,364 days - The Computers of Voyager" by Aaron Cummings
3 mo on HNComputers for Cynics 0 - The Myth of Technology
2 mo on HN50TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE COMPUTER SCIENCE DEPARTMENT AT THE UNIVERSITY OF UTAH
3 mo on HNThe KGB, the Computer, and Me.
3 mo on HNEdsger W. Dijkstra on Dutch TV
3 mo on HNCracking Enigma in 2021 - Computerphile
3 mo on HNThe Computer Chronicles - Gary Kildall Special (1995)
3 mo on HNJoe Armstrong & Jeremy Ruston - Intertwingling the Tiddlywiki with Erlang | Code Mesh LDN 18
3 mo on HNBirth of The Transistor: A video history of Japan's electronic industry. (Part 1)
3 mo on HNLotus Improv for NeXT 1990
2 mo on HNComputer Science - A Guide for the Perplexed • Joe Armstrong • GOTO 2018
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