GUI, HCI & Interface History Videos Hacker News Recommends

talk#61

Bret Victor - Inventing on Principle

Rui Oliveira

“My mind was blown when I saw this video 2 years ago”

12 HN recommenders · 2013–2025

talk#71

Bret Victor The Future of Programming

Joey Reid

“Take a look and you will be amazed of how good (or revolutionary by our standards) some old technologies were.”

12 HN recommenders · 2017–2026

tutorial#142

A Tour of the Acme Editor

Russ Cox

“Russ Cox has a great video tour of Acme's features here”

11 HN recommenders · 2012–2026

demo#157

Alan Kay's tribute to Ted Nelson at "Intertwingled" Festival

TheTedNelson

“a great example of what's not-even-close to possible on today's systems”

7 HN recommenders · 2016–2025

demo#199

The Mother of All Demos, presented by Douglas Engelbart (1968)

Marcel

“If you haven't seen it, it's well worth the hour and forty minutes.”

8 HN recommenders · 2013–2026

talk#233

Alan Kay: Doing with Images Makes Symbols (Full Version)

Kenneth Friedman

“The whole talk is well worth watching”

8 HN recommenders · 2016–2023

lecture#574

In Search of Tomorrow

Berkeley Institute for Data Science (BIDS)

“very good talk about the background of eve”

9 HN recommenders · 2015–2018

talk#579

Bret Victor - The Humane Representation of Thought

Colin McDonnell

“have had a huge impact on the way I think about software”

4 HN recommenders · 2017–2025

demo#613

Eric Bier Demonstrates Cedar

Computer History Museum

“Be prepared to be amazed with what Xerox PARC and others were doing”

3 HN recommenders · 2020–2025

demo#620

Ivan Sutherland Sketchpad Demo 1963

Interface Studies

“It blows me away that this kind of UI was even conceived in the 1960s.”

5 HN recommenders · 2016–2025

explainer#657

Mouse Cursor History (and why I made my own)

Posy

“It is one of those amazing videos that make the internet worthwhile, is short”

4 HN recommenders · 2022–2026

talk#694

Alan Kay at OOPSLA 1997 - The computer revolution hasnt happened yet

Jeff Gonis

“I encourage all developers to watch that talk and do some thinking about the current state of our practice”

6 HN recommenders · 2013–2025

interview#697

Steve Jobs, "Computers are like a bicycle for our minds." - Michael Lawrence Films

Michael Lawrence

“Immediately made me think of Steve Jobs and this great clip”

5 HN recommenders · 2010–2025

demo#741

Ted Nelson demonstrates Xanadu Space

photonhunter

“Too many great talks to mention, but if I had to pick one it would be Ted Nelson's few minutes of demonstration of Xanadu.”

5 HN recommenders · 2011–2022

demo#817

Symbolics Lisp Machine demo Jan 2013

Kalman Reti

“It makes working on VSCode today look like banging rocks together”

5 HN recommenders · 2014–2024

talk#1141

Bret Victor - Seeing Spaces

Colin McDonnell

“Highly recommend Bret's 2 talks for context”

3 HN recommenders · 2017–2024

demo#1166

Alto System Project: Dan Ingalls demonstrates Smalltalk

Computer History Museum

“have really been enjoying this two hour long interview / demo with Dan Ingalls on Smalltalk and the Alto”

3 HN recommenders · 2020–2025

demo#1265

Head Tracking for Desktop VR Displays using the WiiRemote

Johnny Lee

“Can confirm, the 3D effect is 100% spot on”

3 HN recommenders · 2010–2026

commentary#1324

Windows 8: The Animated Evaluation

blogphilofilms

“I think this video explains most of the problems with Windows 8”

3 HN recommenders · 2012–2015

explainer#1374

Xanadu Basics 1a - VISIBLE CONNECTION

TheTedNelson

“Ted Nelson recently did a series of videos on the important ideas in Xanadu. Start here”

3 HN recommenders · 2018–2021

talk#1411

Bret Victor - Media for Thinking the Unthinkable

Colin McDonnell

“Tools let us think previously unthinkable thoughts.”

4 HN recommenders · 2015–2026

demo#1498

Sketchpad, by Dr. Ivan Sutherland with comments by Alan Kay

David Carroll

“one of Alan Kay's favorite demos over the years has been to show folks Sketchpad,”

3 HN recommenders · 2013–2024

commentary#1544

The GUI should be better. A lot better.

Accursed Farms

“this video cursed me to pay far more attention on how shitty modern GUI is in my everyday interaction with the computer and phone”

4 HN recommenders · 2020–2024

interview#1551

Ted Nelson in Herzog's "Lo and Behold"

TheTedNelson

“I've grown to find this interview almost magical.”

3 HN recommenders · 2017–2022

talk#1735

Bret Victor - Drawing Dynamic Visualizations

Colin McDonnell

“My favorite Bret Victor talk ever is”

3 HN recommenders · 2021–2025

commentary#2029

Computers for Cynics 0 - The Myth of Technology

TheTedNelson

“Ted has a knack for reframing things in ways that make the arbitrariness of certain historical decisions clear”

3 HN recommenders · 2013–2024

demo#2040

Avi Bryant demos Dabble db

Tavis Rudd

“The UI was very intuitive, and it did a better job with things like table relations than it's competitors.”

2 HN recommenders · 2014–2023

demo#2071

Code Bubbles: Rethinking the User Interface Paradigm of Integrated Development Environments

AndrewBragdon

“Code Bubbles (from 2010) is the most convincing code visualization tool that I can recall”

2 HN recommenders · 2011–2024

demo#2077

Daniel Henry Holmes Ingalls Jr.: The Live Web. Drag 'n drop in the cloud

JSConf

“Dan Ingalls himself presenting his continued work in the browser at JSConf US 2012”

3 HN recommenders · 2016–2026

demo#2105

NeXT vs Sun

hoffman60613

“I don't know how realistic is this video but it was interesting”

3 HN recommenders · 2015–2026

talk#2113

Joe Armstrong & Jeremy Ruston - Intertwingling the Tiddlywiki with Erlang | Code Mesh LDN 18

Code Sync

“great talk by its creator Jeremy Ruston and the late creator of Erlang, Joe Armstrong”

2 HN recommenders · 2020–2024

demo#2212

NeXTSTEP Release 3 Demo

blatherskyte

“There's a video of steve jobs building a fairly complex DB app without a single line of code, including joins.”

3 HN recommenders · 2007–2016

demo#2279

Lotus Improv for NeXT 1990

Thierry Hubert

“for anyone who hasn't seen Lotus Improv before and is both curious about what it did differently”

1 HN recommenders · 2022–2026

demo#2310

Applied Sciences Group: High Performance Touch

Microsoft Research

“It shows the difference between from >100ms to ~1ms. It's mind baffling.”

3 HN recommenders · 2012–2024

demo#2482

Self: The Movie;

Jecel Assumpção Jr

“This is a good demo of what could be done in the Self environment”

2 HN recommenders · 2013–2024

demo#2499

Alan Kay Demos GRaIL

Vincent Gable

“Pretty amazing stuff, even today.”

2 HN recommenders · 2016–2025

talk#2554

Shawn Douglas - Nanoscale Instruments for Visualizing Small Proteins & Bret Victor - Dynamicland

Foresight Institute

“It shows just how far the Dynamicland concept can be pushed into a hyperspecific feature set customized to fit a single domain”

2 HN recommenders · 2022–2023

talk#2628

Here I Stand, at Age 80

TheTedNelson

“Strongly recommended, and I'm grateful that he recorded this historical treasure.”

2 HN recommenders · 2017–2019

interview#2689

Susan Kare explains Macintosh UI ergonomics on the Computer Chronicles (1984)

erg0steur

“I think some of us (me included) would do well to keep this video in mind when explaining technology to non-technical people.”

2 HN recommenders · 2020–2022

lecture#2787

NeWS: A Networked and Extensible Window System, lecture by James Gosling

Computer History Museum

“Here's James Gosling (you know, guy that invented Java) talking about it for an hour or so from 1990”

2 HN recommenders · 2020–2024

talk#2792

"Eve" by Chris Granger

Strange Loop Conference

2 HN recommenders · 2016–2023

demo#2818

Dabble DB demo

krueggen

“If you haven't heard of DabbleDB, this video is a good introduction”

2 HN recommenders · 2014–2018

talk#2868

MIX08 Microsoft Office 2007: The Story of the Ribbon

zoobean

“some guys from MS actually talk through the design process and everything that went into it with a lot of depth”

2 HN recommenders · 2019–2025

demo#2907

Touché: Enhancing Touch Interaction on Humans, Screens, Liquids, and Everyday Objects

DisneyResearchHub

“Basically the idea is to make devices aware of the physical context of user interactions.”

2 HN recommenders · 2012–2025

talk#2916

Alan Kay: A powerful idea about teaching ideas

TED

“You'll see kids using the software to explore robotics and do physics of gravitation.”

2 HN recommenders · 2009–2024

documentary#2932

The Computer Chronicles - Hypercard (1987)

The Computer Chronicles

“Years ago I stumbled on this (wonderfully dorky) episode of Computer Chronicles, that focuses on HyperCard”

1 HN recommenders · 2020–2025

demo#3387

Leap Technology

aamoviebb

“This is a fascinating view into Raskin's user interface concepts.”

2 HN recommenders · 2014–2026

documentary#3546

Douglas Adams - Hyperland

UJ ObscureMedia

“I just discovered this amazing documentary about hypertext from 1990, written by Douglas Adams”

1 HN recommenders · 2016–2020