Product Details

• Actors: Steve Wozniak, Andy Hertzfeld, Bill Atkinson, Lee Felsenstein, Richard Stallman
• Directors: Fabrice Florin
• Format: Collector's Edition, Color, NTSC
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Number of discs: 1
• Studio: HackersVideo.com
• DVD Release Date: April 15, 1986
• Run Time: 26 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0009RS0EM
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #85,292 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

San Jose Mercury News - David Rosenthal, August 27, 1985

An affectionate and enjoyable trip through the minds of some of Hackdom’s biggest successes... Hackers is television worth watching.

Product Description

Hackers is a classic documentary about the midnight programmers that created the personal computer revolution.

Hackers is not about malicious code-crackers. It is about a "hacker ethic" that led to major breakthroughs in technology, and forever changed our world. From the first MIT hackers to popular Silicon Valley inventors, this program covers this fascinating cultural phenomenon through interviews with twelve of its early pioneers.

This half-hour program features conversations with: Steve Wozniak, designer of the Apple II; Andy Hertzfeld and Bill Atkinson, designers of the Macintosh; Homebrew Computer Club leader Lee Felsenstein; MIT hackers Richard Stallman and Richard Greenblatt; and many more.

Hackers was produced over a decade before the advent of the Internet. All interviews were shot over a long week-end in 1984, at the first Hackers Conference, hosted by Whole Earth Catalog editors Stewart Brand and Kevin Kelley, in Sausalito, California. This event was inspired by Steven Levy’s classic book Hackers – Heroes of the Computer Revolution.

Running time: 26 minutes

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely wonderful!, January 10, 2006

By 

Phylora (Mill Valley CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hackers - Wizards of the Electronic Age (DVD)

Talk about a walk down Memory Lane! This is absolutely priceless footage of the ORIGINAL hackers in all their glorious youth talking about sneaking into the Stanford mainframe computer after hours in order to "hack," staying up all night trying to make code work, Wozniak talking about the first Apple, or talking about "someday you'll be able to send messages," and all of them playing with the brand new Macintosh. This is like looking at an old photo album and sighing over the good old days. I'm sorry the previous reviewer didn't take the time to actually view the tape. It's well worth seeing and savoring.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great DVD, February 12, 2007

By 

Tim Patterson (Austin, TX United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hackers - Wizards of the Electronic Age (DVD)

Being a geek history buff I really enjoyed this DVD.

If you've read Robert X. Cringely's "Accidental Empires", or watched his "Triumph of the Nerds" or "Nerds 2.0.1" videos, or read any of the other good geek history books like "Fire in the Valley" or "Silicon Boys", you will probably enjoy this video.

It's not a comprehensive history (it's only 26 minutes), but offers some cool interviews and other stuff from the pioneers of the modern "PC" era.

You can also watch one of my heroes, Steve Wozniak (Apple co-founder), state how (at the time, in 1985) there were "too many" computer people creating too much software and other stuff, and how the market didn't need that much stuff. These days the number of geeks and computer products has increased exponentially though.. This is his equivalent of the Bill Gates "640k" statement around that same time I think. =)

It's a good video, I only wish it was longer.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Mildly interesting, May 7, 2007

By 

Ronald Bruintjes (Christiansburg, VA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hackers - Wizards of the Electronic Age (DVD)

Mildly interesting video. I had expected a bit more, but this is 30 minutes of a couple of people talking about how cool computers were - in 1980. Nice to see a very young Richard Stallman, and other notorious hackers (Steve Wozniak, Andy Hertzfeld), but all in all a low value video...