Programming / Tech Documentaries

Question

Aside from Startup.com, are there any (relatively recent) good documentaries of a tech nature, such as about programming, tech start-ups, notable people in the industry, etc.

Answer 1

Aardvark'd: 12 Weeks with Geeks

Answer 2

E-dreams is a pretty good movie in that vein. It's about a web site start-up Kozmo.com that delivers groceries to customers in New York. They gained a lot of momentum early, but the wheels eventually started to unravel. The owner of the company, Joe Park, was very young and smart. From the film, he seemed to learn a lot about his success and failure. There's a recent article that reflects on the film and says that Joe co-founded Askville, an Amazon.com website where users ask and answer questions.

Wikipedia has a nice list of significant companies to the dot come bubble. Listed among them are GovWorks (Start-up.Com) and Kozmo.Com.

Answer 3

The Pirates of Silicon Valley. Or heck, just come wander the valley for a few weeks. I almost ran over Woz last weekend.

Answer 4

[The Internet Archive][1] has lots of computer and technology videos.

[1]: http://www.archive.org/details/computersandtechvideos/"Computers and Technology Videos"

Answer 5

One of the definitive documentaries on the tech industry is by Bob Cringely, called Triumph Of The Nerds. Bob continues his work at PBS with a great set of downloadable documentaries called NerdTV. Definitely the most interesting documentaries I've come across.

Answer 6

Code Rush, the documentary about Mozilla in 2000 and their decision to release their code as open source. I enjoyed it.

Answer 7

BBS: The Documentary

Kind of US-centric in its perspective, but the Fidonet parts are really interesting.

Answer 8

The KGB, the Computer and Me, about Cliff Stoll's experiences catching crackers working for the Soviet Union at the end of the cold war.

Answer 9

Bob Cringley's work is a must:

• Trumph of the Nerds - A great history of PC from its origins to the launch of Windows 95.
• Nerds 2.0.1: A Brief History Of The Internet - A history of Arpanet, The Internet, and the web before the dot-com bust.
• NerdTV - A hit or miss interview series with various influential people in the tech industry. Avoid #9 like the plague. I've been looking forward to the second season for years, but I'm wondering now if it'll ever get released. The page hasn't been updated in quite awhile.

Also, check out John Heilemann's "Download: The True Story Of The Interet". It picks up right where Nerds 2.0.1 left off and covers the dot-com bust and Web 2.0 up to early 2008.

Revolution OS is a decent history of the open source movement and Linux.

Finally, check out Penny Arcade: The Series...just cause Gabe & Tycho are awesome. :)