The Incredible Machine (1968)

01DOGG01
6 HN recommenders · recommended in 5 months, 2014–2026
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1.1M views · 13 years ago · documentary · historical

The Incredible Machine is a 1968 Bell Labs educational film about what computers could then do. It shows contemporary equipment, including a PDP-5 and a vector display, with early interactive graphics.

HN enjoys it as a record of 1968 computing at its most inventive, and uses it to date display hardware.

“1968 was peak computing”
GUI historyHCI pioneers & visionary demos
#belllabs#1968#computergraphicshistory#pdp-5#vectordisplay

8 comments from Hacker News

a
@ai_critic2026 · in “The Machine (1968) [video]”
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@syndicatedjelly2024 · in “The Incredible Machine (1968) [video]”
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@rabf2023 · in “Windows 9x and Word 9x at 800x600 resolution. Spacious. Comfy”
1968 was peak computing: ▶ this video
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@peterkelly2019 · in “The Incredible Machine (1968)”
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@themantra5142019 · in “The Incredible Machine (1968)”
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@roughly272017 · in “The Incredible Machine (1968)”
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@masswerk2014 · in “The Origin of Spacewar! (1981)”
A display similar to the Type 30 CRT can be seen in action in this video of a Bell-Labs educational film: ▶ this video ("The Incredible Machine", 1968). The video shows later equipment, a PDP-5 and a display that looks like a member of the 330/340-family, but the technology is the same. (Interactive graphics technology like in TX-2 and the PDPs was actually amazing, but apparently got lost over time-sharing ...)
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j
@jumploops2024 · in “The Incredible Machine (1968) [video]”
The subtitles at 5:55[0] in the video are fantastic - AI subtitling random beeps and noises into words. > the brutal purple from people broke rabin of remind bravo are all these they have hadn't usually mean happened What is it trying to tell us? (: [0]▶ this video
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