Ask HN: Which tech documentaries would you recommend and why? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Which tech documentaries would you recommend and why?

15 pointsherodoturtle9 comments

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BBS: The Documentary http://www.bbsdocumentary.com

Released for free after the DVDs sold out: http://www.bbsdocumentary.com/order/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBS:_The_Documentary

I enjoyed BBS and also Get Lamp, by the same director.

I hope I'm missing something, but I don't seem to be able to find it in its entirety, and its DVD is also sold out.

http://www.getlamp.com

The "Make Better Software" series [0] which follows Joel Spolsky and his company Fog Creek on various aspects of bootstrapping and running a software company.

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXZ75Ds5vOs&list=PLXOSex6PRP...

It's not a documentary but the BBC drama 'Micro Men' is very good and AFAIK mostly historically accurate.

It's about the battle between Clive Sinclair (of Sinclair Spectrum fame) and Chris Curry (founder of Acorn Computers, the progenitor of ARM) for dominance in the 80's UK home computer market.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXBxV6-zamM https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00n5b92

How To Invent the Future, parts 1 and 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=id1WShzzMCQ

Alan Kay talks about the innovations that came out of PARC. I liked it because it confirmed my belief that true industry changing innovations are rare.

I enjoyed 'General Magic' and 'Code Rush' for some fun, throwback Silicon Valley footage.

‘General Magic’ was pretty interesting. It was especially fun to learn about all the influential companies and technology people that emerged from that one company. It definitely re-enforces the idea that sillicon valley isn’t just about a handful of big companies but a community of folks that influence each other. At least at the time of the documentary’s story.

There was a television series which told of the early days of micro-computing, this may be it... https://archive.org/details/triumph_of_the_nerds

Not sure if it qualifies as “tech”, but noclip has great documentaries on YouTube on the history/making of famous games and game studios

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