AT&T Archives: The UNIX Operating System
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN points people to it as the clearest primary-source explanation of Unix pipes and the small-tools philosophy, straight from the creators.
What it is
A 1982 Bell Labs film hosted by Victor Vyssotsky on the origins and design philosophy of the UNIX operating system, with appearances by Kernighan, Thompson and Ritchie. It shows pipes, filters and a shell one-liner spell checker being built.
Recommended by 10 HN commenters across 8 different months, 2013 to 2026.
What Hacker News said
Strong rec krmbzds · 2018-07 · on “The Shell Introduction I Wish I Had”
Nice guide. cd ~ command goes to home directory though, not root. I wish someone showed me the UNIX operating system introduction by Kernighan et al before anything else. It can be found in AT&T arhives: [this video]
Strong rec gftsantana · 2019-10 · on “Unix: A History and a Memoir, by Brian Kernighan”
> Recently I discovered the AT&T history channel, with this gem: [this video] I go back to this video every once in a while ever since I discovered it a few years ago. I just think it is super relaxing. When I first watched it, I was beginning to use Linux and, when I opened my terminal emulator, I was like: "It's a Unix system, I know this!" The pipelines explanation was incredibly clear. I also love the Computerphile episodes with professor Kernighan.
Strong rec GNOMES · 2026-01 · on “The Unix Pipe Card Game”
This gets shared a ton, but the old Bell Labs video from 4:56 to 10:52 is still the best way I have seen pipes explained: [this video]
Recommends gitgud · 2019-10 · on “Ask HN: What is the most beautiful piece of code you've ever read?”
For me it's the unix example in [1] "AT&T Archives: The UNIX Operating System" . $ makewords sentences | lowercase | sort | unique | mismatch - It reads a file called sentences then prints the words that are not spelled correctly. To me it's; concise, expressive, flexible, modular... Which makes it beautiful... [1] [this video]
Recommends koffiezet · 2019-10 · on “Unix: A History and a Memoir, by Brian Kernighan”
I'm always amazed how well Brian Kernighan can explain things. I love the episodes on the Computerphile youtube channel with him. Recently I discovered the AT&T history channel, with this gem: [this video] There is a massive difference in appearance and clarity between him and the other people appearing in that video, even the "presenter"...
Recommends teleforce · 2020-11 · on “The Birth of Unix with Brian Kernighan”
This is an old but informative video on UNIX system productivity by AT&T hosted by Brian Kernighan [1]. Fun fact, the original unused PDP-7 computer mentioned in the article that being utilized by Ken Thompson to first develop UNIX actually belongs to another well-funded sound processing research group in Bell Labs. [1] [this video]
Recommends usrbinbash · 2022-02 · on “Lorinda Cherry, author of dc, bc, eqn has died”
Rest in Peace! Her demonstration of the capabilities of the (then novel) pipes and scripts of the Unix Operating System is one of the best parts of this documentary: [this video]
Recommends digisign · 2022-04 · on “Ask HN: Best way to learn about computing history?”
Was just showing the subject to a youngster recently. Other folks mentioned the Code book, I liked that one. The MMM by Brooks of course. We also looked at the following videos on youtube/Kanopy and other places: - The Story of Math(s) by Marcus du Sautoy to set the stage... school and taxes in ancient Sumeria, Fibonacci bringing Indian numbers to Europe, and other fascinating subjects. - We watched short biographies of Babbage and Lovelace, full-length ones of Turing and Von Neumann. The "code breakers" of WWII. - Top Secret Rosies: The Female "Computers" of WWII, another good one. - There's more history in PBS' Crash Course Computer science, than you might expect. It is great although so p