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I really enjoyed watching this series a while back by Ben Eater:
"Building an 8-bit Breadboard Computer"
It explains a lot of the steps in the rocks-to-computer pipeline in detail. It assumes decent familiarity with electronics fundamentals, though. So maybe not the best starting point.
+1 for Ben Eater. There will be things you won't understand, but for those at least you get a good starting point for reading them up.
EDIT: Main thing for me was to watch them when I was rested and could concentrate, and I didn't binge them in one sitting; these are probably best consumed when they're not just running in the background.
Computers can't think, they are just calculators on steroids..
Cunk on Earth
There is a game called Turing complete where you start with simple logic gates and you start building upwards from there. Then you're only missing the part where you build transistors from silicone wafers.
"Halt and Catch Fire" was pretty good!
From Wikipedia:
It depicts a fictionalized insider's view of the personal computer revolution of the 1980s and the early days of the World Wide Web in the early 1990s.
Demons it's all demons.
This is a classic.
Shows how changes cause more changes and interactions. For instance; coffee is imported into England;coffee shops in London were a popular place to do business before modern office building came around; investors began looking for ways to make the ships they were bankrolling safer; pine tar was a great way to keep ships watertight...
https://youtu.be/XetplHcM7aQ?list=PLf02uWXhaGRng_YzH-Ser_VEV4lGSLX_1
Was thinking of Connections myself. Almost on par with Cosmos, I'd say. Definitely a must watch.
I look at Connections as a history show more than a science show.
Plenty of that in Cosmos, too.
But I see them as shows that teach you how to learn, and how to want to learn, and how to wonder. About history and technology and science, sure, but also about humanity, and the universe. To look around us in awe and ask ourselves why?, and how?, and to try to find out the answers (and enjoy the process even if we end up not finding them).
The kind of shows every child should watch at least once, or every adult if you haven't seen them before (never too late!) or feel like having a rewatch.
Before we used rocks to think we did it with vacuum, heat, and glass. At the time we did have some very very basic thinking rocks with primitive semiconductor diodes made from lead and sulfur.
Also how debugging got its name, because bugs would get into the vacuum tubes
Edit: I did some digging and found what’s claimed to be the actual “de-bugging”. Turns out it wasn’t as widespread as my memory made it out to be.
Wouldn’t really be vacuum if they could get in though
Depending on how much you know already, the Crash Course Computer Science videos are an excellent place to start. It’s obviously an intro course but, like most Crash Course stuff, it does a good job of explaining the basics and also giving a bit of context and history.
https://youtu.be/FU_YFpfDqqA?si=NRQYXa6nk_NTn7vf
I believe it was this video by Veritasium that I was thinking of that explains how we got switches to think. Modern computers use the same principles. Just instead of physical switches, they use semiconductor switches. Which is were the rocks come into play. Semiconductors, in supper brief nut shell, are on the verge of conducting and need a little nudge of voltage to start conducting. Hence the semi part.
I can really recommend the YouTube channel "Branch Education" they do a lot of in depth explanations on this topic.
I like that channel alot. They get into the science while keeping it understandable enough to learn the basics.
Since you like Branch Education, check out (if you havn't found them yet) Deconstructed, Animagraffs and Jared Owen. They branch out from computers and each do other cool stuff like motors, gas lighters, helicopters, Nerf guns, rockets, and the Kripsy Kreme donut machine.
Hidden Figures. Not quite what you want, but pretty close. The Imitation Game is also worth a watch.
edit: Sorry. I misunderstood your question. It's late and I read it as you asking for movies about early computing, not actually explanatory videos.
This post from the other day was pretty good
http://www.righto.com/2024/07/pentium-standard-cells.html?m=1
We shot it with a lightning bolt and then some weird sh*t started happening. /s.
Nah, that's how you get Johnny 5 to be alive.
