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The Great 202 Jailbreak - Computerphile

21 videos recommended on HN
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2 HN users recommended this interview2 months2015–2024 score 2
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026

Recommended alongside the original paper and Unix history threads as an engaging account of the typesetter hack.

Computerphile with Professor Brailsford on how a 1979 Bell Labs team reverse engineered a Linotron 202 phototypesetter over a summer to get high-quality print output. It covers typesetting history and the later 2013 rebuild of the famous vacation memo.

“explained the brilliant and exiting history of this paper and its recreation, as well as the history of Phototypesetters.” (HN, 2015)

2 recommendations · 1 citations · Interviews

3 Hacker News comments

From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.

@jgalt212 Jul 2024 Recommends
on HN thread The Birth of Standard Error (2013)
> As one might expect, Bell Labs didn't use the paper tape input tangentially related. The Great 202 Jailbreak - Computerphile [this video] staring the inimitable Professor Brailsford.
Computerphile video on the 202 typesetter jailbreak with Professor Brailsford.

Citations, criticism and jokes

@leoc Nov 2020 Cites it
on HN thread The Birth of Unix with Brian Kernighan
0:16:40 For those who haven't seen it before, there's a Computerphile video [this video] (related video: [link] ) about the hacking of the typesetting machine, a Mergenthaler Linotron 202. 0:24:31 The photo must be the one at [link] (probably the webpage, on Dennis Ritchie's old website, that made it famous recently).
Computerphile explains the hacking of the Linotron 202 typesetter at Bell Labs.

Video list and Hacker News comment labels from HackerTube (prompted by @karpathy), released under ODC-By 1.0, built on the open-index/hacker-news archive. Hacker News data is provided by Y Combinator; comments remain the work of their authors. Video titles, channel names and thumbnails belong to their creators and are shown via YouTube. HackerTube Watch is an unofficial edition. Data export of 2026-10-31.

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