HackerTube.dev

VCF East: Ken Thompson interviewed by Brian Kernighan

Vintage Computer Federation · 417.8K views · 2019-05-06 · 1:03:51

Open on YouTube ↗

If playback is restricted in your region, try opening the original video. Use Mark watched to add it to your marked videos.

Overview

Brian Kernighan interviews Unix co-creator Ken Thompson at VCF East 2019. Thompson recounts how he was hired at Bell Labs, writing the Unix kernel in about three weeks, the origins of B and TMG, pipes, and other anecdotes.

On Hacker News

HN commenters recommend it for Thompson's funny, first-hand Unix history stories, some of which even Kernighan had not heard.

Recommended by 11 HN people across 10 months · HN mentions 2019–2025

Topics

History of computingTech pioneers & interviewsOperating systems & kernels
Search by tags
ken thompsonbrian kernighanunixbell labscomputing historytmg

What people said

kick · 2019-12 · Strong recommendation

Two of the most interesting ones I've seen this year: Brian Kernighan (of K&R fame, and much more) interviewing Ken Thompson (initial author of UNIX, though you probably already knew both of these): lots of interesting anecdotes, like getting a chess machine seized by the US government: [VIDEO] Drew DeVault, (sway/sr.ht/much more author) hacking on his Wayland VR desktop inside of his Wayland VR desktop (don't believe the people who say you can't do programming inside of VR yet!): [LINK] NB. the second video is on a PeerTube instance. PeerTube is a federated and decentralized YouTube alternative.

Read the original HN comment ↗
yesenadam · 2019-11 · Strong recommendation

Also I found these fascinating: The Unix-Haters Handbook (1994) has a lot of history and takes you back in time.. [LINK] Brian Kernighan 'interviews' Ken Thompson (2019) - Ken telling stories. They're both very funny, a very entertaining video, some stories I (and even Brian) hadn't heard. [VIDEO] UNIX: Making Computers Easier To Use (1982) [LINK] Also the other day I read in the AWK book that it was mainly inspired by SNOBOL4, so looked at some SNOBOL4 books from archive.org, from 1970-2 and just before, slightly earlier than Unix history takes you back. One tells you how to organize your punch cards to feed in the program.. Another had a bibliography with many dozens of SNOBOL books. It was widely used by people in the humanities apparently; like AWK it was at home dealing with words and text.

Read the original HN comment ↗
jen_h · 2019-10 · Strong recommendation

Looking forward to reading this! Had the pleasure of seeing Brian Kernighan and Ken Thompson speak at VCF East earlier this year, totally worth a watch: [VIDEO] I highly recommend hitting up a Vintage Computer Festival if you've got the opportunity ( [LINK] ). Not only did Kernighan and Thompson speak, but also Joe Decuir of Atari & Amiga fame.

Read the original HN comment ↗

Sources

Video by Vintage Computer Federation, played through YouTube.

Data and selection notes

HN summaries and labels may contain AI errors. HN dates refer to discussions, not video publication.

HN Library: HackerTube export (2026-10-31) and open-index/hacker-news. Upstream summaries and classifications may contain AI errors.

Views, duration and playback status refresh separately from the published catalog. When an update fails, existing data remains visible.

Selection checks
  • SaaS & AI candidates: Topic keywords do not match
  • Editor-approved picks: Editorial review is required

Rule matches identify candidates. They do not guarantee video quality or financial results.

About the library and its sources