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The Secret Life of Machines
1988 · TV series · documentary · 30 min episodes · 3 seasons
Created by Tim Hunkin
The Secret Life of Machines is an educational television series presented by Tim Hunkin and Rex Garrod, in which the two explain the inner workings and history of common household and office machinery. According to Hunkin, the show's creator, the programme was developed from his comic strip The Rudiments of Wisdom, which he researched and drew for the Observer newspaper over a period of 14 years. Three separate groupings of the broadcast were produced and originally shown between 1988 and 1993 on Channel 4 in the United Kingdom, with the production subsequently airing on The Learning Channel and the Discovery Channel.
16 positivefrom 16 commenters
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18 comments on Hacker News
If you have 30 minutes to spare the old program "The Secret Life of Machines" has an episode demonstrating how sewing machines work, in a delightfully quirky way.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lwI4TSKM3Y
Tim Hunkin had a wonderful series on TV back in the 80s or 90s - the Secret Life of Machines. Nice relaxed pace and great for kids. The episodes are up on YouTube via his website: https://timhunkin.com/a243_Secret-Life-of-Machines-intro.htm
Title reminds me of Tim Hunkin's BBC series "The Secret Life of Machines", which he's put on YouTube. There is, funnily enough, an episode on central heating systems:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnQ9zkBzbYc
EDIT: there is of course a bit about thermostats: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnQ9zkBzbYc&t=1137
Possibly the high water mark of such things was the "Secret Life Of Machines" series. Here is their episode on fax machines:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuUyt9RG7pk
He had a TV series in the late 80s/early 90s titled "The Secret Life of Machines" which was required viewing: https://secretlifeofmachines.com/
The Secret Life of Machines - Tim Hunkin - TV Series, now on the web
Connections - James Burke
The Origins of Precision - Machine Thought - Youtube
MacGyver - 1980s TV show
"The Secret Life Of Machines" was a very bright spot in my childhood. My mother recorded the episodes on VHS cassettes and I wore those things out playing them. I've been rewatching them as Tim posts them on YT and I'm delighted to find that they're as brilliant and hilarious now as they were 30 years ago.
Tim Hunkin, who was behind the British show The Secret Life of Machines, is releasing a YouTube series called The Secret Life of Components, and episode six is about Connectors:
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q43tZ6DjuIE
His channel (which also has the original Machines series available):
* https://www.youtube.com/c/timhunkin1/videos
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Hunkin
Tim Hunkin and Rex Garrod made an amazing educational television series called Secret Life of Machines in the UK from '88 to '93 that many of you may be familiar with. They're all about how different household machines work, in great entertaining detail. I first discovered it on YouTube a few years ago, and it still holds up today. Here's[1] a list of the episodes on his website.
Rex Garrod died a couple of years ago[2], but Tim Hunkin still occasionally puts out short videos on his YouTube channel, mostly about the arcade machines he makes for his two arcades. But he hasn't done any long-form content for a while, which is why I was excited to see that he's made a new series called The Secret Life of Components that he will be releasing on March 4, 2021. The linked video is a trailer for it, and it's made in very much the same style as The Secret Life of Machines.
[1]: https://www.timhunkin.com/control/n_tv_index.htm
[2]: https://www.timhunkin.com/a229_rex.htm
“The Secret Life of Machines”
My god how I loved that show. Tim Hunkin is such a weird and wonderful person. And though the show sorta predates the modern internet, as soon as the tech was available/undertandable to him, he put the whole damn series online for download (initially on an FTP server) for free.
The episode where he and Garrod make a an audio recording with some rust filings and Scotch tape (sticky tape ;) was simply amazing.
"How It's Made" is often fascinating to watch, and it always reminds me of a childhood favourite: "The secret life of machines":
http://www.secretlifeofmachines.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_Life_of_Machines
Full episodes are available on Youtube, for example The Quartz Watch - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQ9_bOIj49s
The "Secret Life Of Machines" episode about the photocopier is also illuminating: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2NIAD5qn7E
Thanks to both of you for the praise.
You might also be interested in "The Secret Life of Machines". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_Life_of_Machines and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDpNQQqdSh8&list=PLByTa5duIolYRtq45Cz_GmtzfWJyA4bik .
Philip Morrison (from Ring of Truth) is perhaps best known for his powers-of-10 movie. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powers_of_Ten_(film) .
He was also a columnist for Scientific American. The only column I remember is when he decided to make bread from scratch. Really from scratch. They grew wheat in a small plot of land near his home in Cambridge, Mass.
He's part of the generation that developed the first atomic bomb. He carried the first core to the Trinity test site in the back seat of his car, and helped load the weapons on the planes that went to Japan.
There is a great TV series called "The Secret Life of Machines" that covered some inventions that changed the world: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDpNQQqdSh8&list=PLByTa5duIolYRtq45Cz_GmtzfWJyA4bik&spfreload=5
There is an episode on central heating: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9y08yBdoFsI
As with anything they ever covered, The Secret Life of Machines has a superb episode on the vacuum cleaner:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LS_WcIAPSzU
Truly one of the best television shows of all time.
You can find some great resources (although more unstructured) on Youtube. I recommend the following: - Computerphile (https://www.youtube.com/user/Computerphile) - The Secret Life of Machines (1990's series)(some episodes touch on computing - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOULWR4h4Io)
For an old school look at internal combustion engines, check out this episode of The Secret Life of Machines:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfr3_AwuO9Y
The whole show is well worth the time.
Love a bit of Tim Hunkin. Anyone reading HackerNews would probably enjoy his television series from the early 90s: The Secret Life of Machines. Details, including links to download locations (bittorrent for preference I'd imagine) here: http://www.timhunkin.com/control/n_tv_index.htm