VCF East: Ken Thompson interviewed by Brian Kernighan

Why HN readers recommended it

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

This is a summary from the source dataset, not an endorsement by Hacker News or the video creator.

Video & recommendation details

Creator / channel

Vintage Computer Federation

Topic

unix history

Format

interview

Level

general

HN recommenders in dataset

11

HN mentions in dataset

18

Recommendation years in dataset

2019–2025

These counts and years describe the included Hacker News records; they are not YouTube views or the video’s publication date.

From the original HN conversations

Excerpts from the recorded comments. Follow each source for the full comment and surrounding discussion.

• 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 …

• 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) …

• 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 …