12 videos · 12 hr 24 minProgramming history in 12 talks
A chronological walk through programming history, told mostly by the people who were there. After an overview from Uncle Bob, it moves from Colossus and Grace Hopper through BASIC, Engelbart's 1968 demo, Unix, Xerox PARC and Lisp machines, then the home computer boom, free software and the open-sourcing of Netscape. Some are talks, some are films; all are ones HN keeps recommending.
Play all on YouTube- 11:18:21
"Uncle" Bob Martin - "The Future of Programming"
Paul Stringer's Mobile Tech · Picked by 10 · 2016–2022The opener and map: Uncle Bob tells the whole story from 1948 to today, which one HN commenter called a fascinating introduction to how hardware and languages evolved.
- 21:00:26
Colossus - The Greatest Secret in the History of Computing
The Centre for Computing History · Picked by 3 · 2022–2024The start of the timeline, the wartime codebreaking machine at Bletchley Park, told with stories of the unsung engineers who built it.
- 32:04
Admiral Grace Hopper Explains the Nanosecond
funbury · Picked by 5 · 2020–2025Two minutes with the compiler pioneer herself, holding up a length of wire to make a nanosecond something you can see.
- 438:13
Birth of BASIC
Dartmouth · Picked by 3 · 2021–20241964 at Dartmouth: Kemeny, Kurtz and their students invent BASIC and time-sharing, in what HN calls the definitive documentary on it.
- 5
1:40:53The Mother of All Demos, presented by Douglas Engelbart (1968)
Marcel · Picked by 8 · 2013–20261968: the mouse, hypertext, video calls and collaborative editing all shown in one sitting, which HN treats as essential viewing.
- 6
1:03:51VCF East: Ken Thompson interviewed by Brian Kernighan
Vintage Computer Federation · Picked by 11 · 2019–2025Unix and C from the source: Ken Thompson tells Kernighan how he wrote the Unix kernel in about three weeks, plus stories even Kernighan hadn't heard.
- 7
32:56Bret Victor The Future of Programming
Joey Reid · Picked by 12 · 2017–2026Bret Victor speaks as if it were 1973, a playful reminder of how many bold ideas from that era programming quietly dropped.
- 8
2:08:02Alto System Project: Dan Ingalls demonstrates Smalltalk
Computer History Museum · Picked by 3 · 2020–2025Xerox PARC in action: Dan Ingalls runs Smalltalk on a restored Alto, the live programming environment that shaped personal computing.
- 9
13:43Symbolics Lisp Machine demo Jan 2013
Kalman Reti · Picked by 5 · 2014–2024Lisp's high point, a whole computer built around the language; HN's go-to demo, and one commenter said it makes modern editors look like banging rocks together.
- 10
1:24:13Micro Men - 720p (2009)
gimpymoo · Picked by 15 · 2015–2026The early-80s home computer boom as a comic BBC drama about Sinclair versus Acorn, the rivalry that eventually produced ARM.
- 11
1:25:10Revolution OS
Von Hash · Picked by 3 · 2014–2016The free software story from Stallman and GNU to Torvalds and Linux, the standard documentary HN points to for the backstory.
- 12
56:09Project Code Rush - The Beginnings of Netscape / Mozilla Documentary
The Documentary Network · Picked by 13 · 2015–2026A fitting close where the web and open source meet: Netscape engineers race to release the Mozilla source in 1998, filmed from inside the company.