Visual Explorer: Computer Chronicles 1982-2002 Archive Now Available

 February 25, 2023

In collaboration with the Internet Archive, we are excited to announce today that the complete 1982-2002 archive of the phenomenal television series Computer Chronicles, hosted by Stewart Cheifet and chronicling two formative decades of the rise of personal computing from early adopters to the global public, are now available in the Visual Explorer. Made available for viewing on Archive's site nearly two decades ago, we have now made this one-of-a-kind archive of computing's early days "skimmable" via the Visual Explorer's thumbnail interface – allowing you to rapidly see the kinds of visuals and interface metaphors that defined the early years of personal computing as it went mainstream:

Hosted by Stewart Cheifet, Computer Chronicles was the world's most popular television program on personal technology during the height of the personal computer revolution. It was broadcast for twenty years from 1983 – 2002. The program was seen on more than 300 television stations in the United States and in over 100 countries worldwide, with translations into French, Spanish, Chinese, and Arabic. The series had a weekly television broadcast audience of over two million viewers. The series has been recognized for its journalistic excellence, winning a variety of journalistic awards including more than a dozen from the prestigious Computer Press Association. The series covered high-tech subjects around the world, having shot programs in such various locations as Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Scotland, Spain, and Taiwan. Computer Chronicles was based in the Silicon Valley area of California. Many of the series programs are distributed on video to corporations and educational institutions for use in computer training. Computer Chronicles program segments have also been bundled with various computer text books by major publishers.

Note that some shows below may not play correctly in all browsers due to technical issues with the underlying MP4 files. In those cases, you can use the thumbnail grid to get a sense of the broadcast and the timecode(s) of interest and view those directly on the Archive's site via its inline player.