Skip to content
HomeVideos
AllLongsCategoriesPlaylists
BooksBlogsPodcasts
HistoryListsWatch laterLiked videosFollowing

The videos, books, blogs and podcasts Hacker News keeps recommending, all in one place.

VideosBooksBlogsPodcastsAboutPrivacySettings

Data from Hacker News, HackerTube, HackerBooks, HackerBlogs and Open Library. Credits · Not affiliated with Y Combinator.

HomeVideosBooksBlogsPodcasts
Ctrl K

    How Prince of Persia Defeated Apple II's Memory Limitations | War Stories | Ars Technica

    Ars Technica

    5 HN recommenders · recommended in 5 months, 2020–2026

    YouTube

    20:49 · 1.5M views · Mar 17, 2020

    In an Ars Technica War Stories episode, Prince of Persia creator Jordan Mechner describes how he made the game on the Apple II, fighting hardware memory limits and the platform's decline. It covers the rotoscoped animation and the engineering tricks involved.

    Repeatedly called essential viewing for game development history and clever work under memory constraints.

    Games & Game DevelopmentGame history & retro gamingDemoscene & retrocomputingAnimation & visual effects
    1. 31:37
      How Crash Bandicoot Hacked The Original Playstation | War Stories | Ars TechnicaArs Technica5.2M views • 6 years ago
    2. 52:47
      2 1 1 Jason Scott Rescuing The Prince of Persia from the sands of timeAdrian Crenshaw25K views • 14 years ago
    3. 23:24
      How Myst Almost Couldn't Run on CD-ROM | War Stories | Ars TechnicaArs Technica2M views • 6 years ago
    4. 12:04
      How we fit an NES game into 40 KilobytesMorphcat Games3.7M views • 8 years ago
    5. 2:55:13
      Oral History of Gary Davidian, part 2 of 2Computer History Museum1.8K views • 7 years ago
    6. 13:44
      The Story of Another World on the Amiga | MVGModern Vintage Gamer350K views • 4 years ago
    7. 1:01:07
      The Ultimate Game Boy Talk (33c3)media.ccc.de242K views • 9 years ago
    8. 5:01
      How a Laser-Shot Disk Defeats Hackers & Pirates (Coding Secrets)GameHut132K views • 8 years ago
    9. 1:19:52
      CppCon 2016: Jason Turner “Rich Code for Tiny Computers: A Simple Commodore 64 Game in C++17”CppCon264K views • 10 years ago
    10. 7:08
      How "oldschool" graphics worked Part 1 - Commodore and NintendoThe 8-Bit Guy5.7M views • 11 years ago
    11. 1:02:03
      Elite: "The game that couldn't be written"Alexander the ok2M views • 2 years ago
    12. 4:01
      Onslaught - Bad Apple 64 - C64 DemoRetroDemoScene71K views • 12 years ago
    13. 1:04:15
      The Untold Story of Online Gaming on Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis | XBANDWrestling With Gaming619K views • 7 years ago
    14. 22:24
      Lyle Bickley explains the PDP-1 (and we play the original Spacewar!)CuriousMarc432K views • 9 years ago
    15. 51:01
      Amiga Story | Nostalgia NerdNostalgia Nerd1.7M views • 9 years ago
    16. 2:01:18
      GET LAMP: The Text Adventure DocumentaryGoogle TechTalks244K views • 15 years ago
    17. 2:35:32
      3dfx Oral History Panel with Ross Smith, Scott Sellers, Gary Tarolli, and Gordon CampbellComputer History Museum51K views • 12 years ago
    18. 14:37
      Doomed: The Embers of Amiga FPSAhoy559K views • 12 years ago
    19. 10:45
      The Making of: ROM City Rampage (Retro City Rampage)VblankEntertainment399K views • 13 years ago
    20. 18:20
      FIXING the ENTIRE SM64 Source Code (INSANE N64 performance)Kaze Emanuar3.2M views • 4 years ago

    7 comments from Hacker News

    1. @barishnamazovSep 2025· in “A platform-jumping prince – History of Prince of Persia's 1990s Ports”

      > "For the first time I felt what it's really like to play Prince of Persia when you're not the author and don't already know by rote what's lurking around every corner." This perfectly captures why code reviews by someone who didn't write the original are so valuable. You can't unsee your own assumptions. I remember seeing the following short but extremely interesting documentary about makings of the game as well: this video - Essential viewing for anyone interested in game development history.

      Strongly recommendsView on HN
    2. @mscdexJun 2026· in “How we made hit video game Prince of Persia”

      If you haven't already seen it, I highly recommend watching the "War Stories" video on the making of Prince of Persia: this video On a related note, I also highly recommend the "War Stories" video for the making of Crash Bandicoot: [LINK]

      Strongly recommendsView on HN
    3. @stefanos82Jun 2026· in “How we made hit video game Prince of Persia”

      I have watched the creator explaining to us in great detail how he came up with so many tiny details that made it a perfect game for its time! Just watch it yourself, you will be in awe! this video

      Strongly recommendsView on HN
    4. @softwhaleDec 2020· in “Examples of games developed by a single developer?”

      Arstechnica has a great interview with Jordan Mechner, the creator of this game. A true technical and artistic wizard: this video

      RecommendsView on HN
    5. @ajdoingnothingDec 2021· in “Prince of Persia in JavaScript”

      If you haven't seen Jordan Mechner talking about the development of Prince of Persia yet (definitely recommended): this video

      RecommendsView on HN