u/pmyourfoodpicsin r/C_Programming • Recommends
Brian Kernighan interviews Ken Thompson. Not specific to C, but I figured everyone here would be interested in it.
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#unix#kenthompson#briankernighan
VCF East: Ken Thompson interviewed by Brian Kernighan
Vintage Computer Federation
17K subscribers • 3 videos on Hallway
- Recommended by 13 people: 11 on Hacker News, 1 on Lobsters and 1 in engineering communities.
- A classic. People kept recommending it from 2019 to 2025.
- Presented by Ken Thompson, co-creator of Unix
Beginner. No background in the topic needed.
417K views7 years ago13 recommendations
History and cultureSystems programmingHistory of computingOperating systemsPeople who shaped computing
Unix co-creator Ken Thompson sits down with Brian Kernighan to share stories about the creation of Unix, Bell Labs, and early computing history.
In the 1960s-1970s, Ken Thompson co-invented the UNIX operating system along with Dennis Ritchie at Bell Labs. He also worked on the language B, the operating system Plan 9, and the language Go. He and Ritchie won the Turing Award. He now works at Google. He’ll be interviewed by Brian Kernighan of “K&R” fame. This talk took place May 4, 2019. Videography courtesy of @thegurumeditation (Facebook), @thegurumeditate (Twitter) Vintage Computer Federation: vcfed.org VCF Discord: discord.gg/u4ybsBK Start of Video, Introductions and Updates Start of Fireside Chat How Ken got to Bell Labs Origins of UNIX Three weeks away from an OS The PDP-11 Pipes GREP Languages and Evolution Chess Computers End of ChatWhy it's here
13 people recommend thisWhat people say. Highly recommended for its entertaining and historic first-hand anecdotes about the birth of Unix and Bell Labs.
Moments people linked to
inactive-useron Lobsters • Recommends
Brian Kernighan interviews Ken Thompson at Vintage Computer Festival East 2019
Intro is almost 11 minutes; direct link to actual start: link to this video
jen_hon Hacker News • Recommends
On “Unix: A History and a Memoir, by Brian Kernighan”
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: link to this 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.
yesenadamon Hacker News • Recommends
On “A Mystery of Unix History”
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. link to this 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 wa…
kickon Hacker News • Recommends
On “Ask HN: What are the best computing-related videos you've watched recently?”
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: link to this 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.
alisteron Hacker News • Recommends
On “Brian Kernighan (Coined Word “Unix”) Interviews Ken Thompson (Co-Invented Unix)”
The interview starts at link to this video Brian Kernighan coined the word “Unix” and is the “K” in K&R (co-author of the The C Programming Language book). Ken Thompson co-invented Unix. Full of funny anecdotes like needing 3 weeks to write the kernel and serendipitously his wife was going on vacation for 3 weeks.
pmoriartyon Hacker News • Recommends
On “The Birth of Unix with Brian Kernighan”
One of my favorite moments from the birth of UNIX is Ken Thompson's telling (in this interview with Brian Kernighan) of how he got hired to work at Bell Labs: link to this video (starting at about 11 minutes in to the video)
dwcnnnghmon Hacker News • Recommends
On “The Birth of Unix with Brian Kernighan”
…it, and (I won't say without error, but with so few errors you'd be astonished) he came up with a TMG compiler, on the PDP-7, written in TMG. And it's the most basic, bare, impressive self-compilation I've ever seen in my life. This story, by the way, leads into how Ken created B (and how that was eventually improved by Dennis Ritchie into C). 0 link to this video…
BenoitEssiambreon Hacker News • Recommends
On “Why don't I have a blog?”
I found Kernighan's book quite riveting. If you want the short version (this might spoil some of the book) this talk is quite something: link to this video
tuckerpoon Hacker News • Recommends
On “Ask HN: Single-person creations that have stood the test of time?”
See Ken Thompson's monologue about creating Unix in 3 weeks: link to this video Programmers used to be pretty damn productive.
canedon Hacker News • Recommends
On “Ask HN: What story from the PDP-8 era would make a good script?”
This isn't specifically PDP-8-related, but the story of Bell Labs going to extraordinary lengths to hire Ken Thompson is a hoot: link to this video ...not to mention Ken's story of Doug McIlroy writing a compiler for TCG on a sheet of paper, then using it to compile itself - by hand - thus "feeding his sheet of paper his sheet of paper."
cjs_acon Hacker News • Recommends
On “1972 Unix V2 "Beta" Resurrected”
The interview is here: link to this video One hour long, and Thompson tells a lot of entertaining stories. Kernighan does a good job of just letting Thompson speak.
bentleyon Hacker News • Recommends
On “Unix co-creator Brian Kernighan on Rust, distros and NixOS”
…are disappointing clickbait, but the video itself is worth watching for Kernighan’s relating of history and his theories about what confluence of factors made Unix successful (collegial environment, good management, overall mission…). Another worthwhile video from the same conference (in a different year) is Kernighan’s interview of Ken Thompson: link to this video…
fjarlqon Hacker News • Mentions
On “Unix: A History and a Memoir, by Brian Kernighan”
Videos of Ken Thompson and Rob Pike telling Unix history stories: Ken Thompson (interviewed by Brian Kernighan, 2019, starts after 7m38s): link to this video Rob Pike (Unix History presentation, 2018, starts after 3m40s): link
tpaschalison Hacker News • Mentions
On “/* You Are Not Expected to Understand This */ (2018)”
This comment has produced one of the geekiest t-shirts of all time. In 1 Brian Kernighan interviews Ken Thompson, who's wearing a t-shirt which contains the relevant snippet along with a comment "ΕΠΙΤΕΛΟΥΣ ΤΟ ΚΑΤΑΛΑΒΑ!" (greek for 'I finally understood it!'). 1 link to this video
ghowardon Hacker News • Mentions
On “Lorinda Cherry, author of dc, bc, eqn has died”
As one of few authors of an implementation of `dc` and `bc`, but one who never actually met Lorinda Cherry, perhaps I have a slightly different perspective of her work. I've read the closest thing we have to the original sources of `dc` and `bc`: the source bundled with Plan 9. It didn't take me long to read the entirety of the source because they were simple and concise. That immensely impressed me. However, I hate to say that my youth (compared to Ms. Cherry, at least) caused me to look at the source with disdain, mostly from a lack of handling errors caused by user mistakes. It took several days for me to think more carefully about the context. She was writing for herself and other progra…