1967, THE COMPUTER REVOLUTION, Isaac Kleinerman, Walter Cronkite

Just a quick note on these educational films. Almost all of them are beat up pretty bad on the lead and tail but once you get into it things smooth out very nicely. Just remember these came from High Schools and Colleges and were horribly abused as any good educational tool would be. Thank you for your understanding.
21st Century".
A timely - even frightening - reminder of the rapid advance computers are making into our lives. In many fields the impersonal efficient machine is shaping and controlling our destinies. The film points to the ever-increasing reliance on computers and illustrates computer applications of today and in the future specifically in production, aviation, medicine, education, law-enforcement, rocket space travel, design, communication etc. Implications for citizens' rights to privacy. Reporter: Walter Cronkite.

[@BenSussmanpro]

…”And finally the computer bills the patient for everything” - this fact sure hasn’t changed!

[@LeifES]

The word “everything” should be in all upper case I believe 😂

[@UKSCIENCEORG]

not here in the UK. It's all free 🙂

[@johnnytoobad7785]

I'm 60+ years old and a retired software engineer. Mr. Cronkites "special reports " (like this one) and his coverage of the space program had a lot to do with my interest in math & science at a very young age.

[@curcumin417]

Love these old reels- clear and professional narration

[@dans9463]

I heard he was bored in reporting on the moon landing.

[@cristianm7097]

Back then in the 1960s people could afford houses, but not computers. Now in 2023 people can afford powerful computers , but cannot afford even a modest apartment.

[@olsencarl]

Very true

[@cristianm7097]

@@turdferguson12 Maybe companies buy bulk to further rent to individuals.

[@Lord_LindaThePhilosopher]

People are working on it. Get hud if it'd really bad you probably qualify.

[@Gangster88232]

You dont need to own a house. Just play video games.

[@OfficeofImageArchaeology]

@Gangster88232 sadly, that is so true, I have a 30+ year-old nephew that has a wife and young son. The wife has brain cancer they live with her father. My nephew had a great job with fantastic medical benefits, making really good money. He was working as an engineer at a local casino. He had to work in one of the rooms and fell asleep on the bed. That’s because he plays all night long on Minecraft. The only sleep he got was when he would not off at the computer. So his poor wife with brain cancer will probably not get the medical attention that she needs. The son made a comment the other day that he never sees his daddy because he is at work or playing Minecraft and the boys only six years old.

[@mestubbs]

“Nor is it likely to write a story…” 😱

[@richardshansky3040]

AI

[@micmac99]

ChatGPT has entered the chat

[@JohnMartin-cd1qm]

"The computer is not likely to write a story the city editor will accept." AI: "Hold my beer."

[@tma2001]

ChatGPT has entered the er ... chat ;)

[@Skibidi_Male_X]

Yes exactly.

[@rolandschweiger8678]

born 1970 and grew up with Commodore64 (programming in machine language); it is fascinating to see a 1967 documentary that PREDICTS many of the evolutions in computer technology we take for granted today. Also interesting ....... terminal input/output is mostly still done with teletype machines yet screen terminals did already exist and even graphic input (light pen or similar); there are a few scenes where some kind of terminal screen (i assume it is a CRT) is seen, would be interesting to me how was the character set created at that time. Did the chararter set exist inside the terminal for compatibility reason so the computer still would beleive talking to a teletypewriter, or was the video signal with the character set created inside a controller in the computer itself? Great that this documantary is so real factual and objective (in German we have the term "sachlich" which means something like directly scientific and not blurred with emotions); in the late 1960s and still much later, to most people in the public computers were some type of evil machines that made a lot of noise and were dangerous, could develop a mind of their own etc. so it really is refreshing to see such a well researched documentary here, TNX for uploading.

[@SimonEllwood]

7 bit ASCII was used on the punched cards and the paper tape. It is still the first 127 symbols of the character set we use today.

[@dmj-ju9zx]

Thanks for posting. I've been wanting to see these again. I was born in 1958 and loved watching this show on Sunday evenings...even though it was sometimes a little over my head.

[@someguy2135]

Me too. We are almost the same age. Our whole family watched "The 21st Century" every week.

[@telcobilly]

I was born in 1958 too, barely, it was November. My first real job was at the Johannesburg Stock Exchange in '78. I recognize a lot of the computers and peripherals as IBM. Their products were built like tanks. The machine I was an operator on was an IBM 370/135 &145. A tech came once and had a circuit board pulled out. It was a memory board with iron core (rings) to store memory data..Unreal how far we have come..

[@someguy2135]

I was waiting for the IBM computer to sing "Daisy, Daisy."

[@michaelwhalen2442]

Open the pod bay door, for crying out loud!

[@fitveganathleteintegrateda1695]

I'm sorry Dave... Oh HAL! Pipe down! LOL

[@misterwhipple2870]

That song is actually called "A Bicycle Built For Two" or "Daisy Bell" and it was written by Harry Dacre in 1892. It wa written about a socialist known as Frances Greville, Countess of Warwick, born in 1861 and died in 1938. She was one of the many women porked by Edward VII in his Prince-of-Wales days.

[@someguy2135]

@@misterwhipple2870 Thank you. That was "Quite Interesting!" (Just the sort of thing I would expect to see on that show.)

[@OfficeofImageArchaeology]

@someguy2135 you’re welcome, thank you for watching. They are over 1000 videos on this channel mostly taken from old 16mm film. I suspect there’s probably something for everybody here. Have a great week and share if you can.

[@badscrew4023]

These old scientific education films have the best soundtracks

[@syproful]

A 4:00 the guy says something very important which is still true today. Even “AI” such as chatgpt can’t “think” it only channels information through the neural net as it was trained on.

[@psikeyhackr6914]

"12,000 lines an hour" 200 lines per minute 3.33 lines per second I soldered together my first computer in 1978. I just bought a used Dell Core i7 for $150. It could probably do 12,000 lines per second without breaking a sweat. I doubt that most people today comprehend how much processing power they are buying. 1s and 0s in magnets? Oh yeah, they used core memory back then. They still call it a core dump even though core technology is no longer used.

[@rum-ham]

I wondered why it was called a core dump. Thanks for explaining.

[@psikeyhackr6914]

@@rum-ham LOL, yeah, we Olde Foggies are occasionally useful. The computer industry is strange with so many details that can be critically important in some circumstances and totally irrelevant in others. I was a Customer Engineer for IBM and had to do a core dump on a System 3. The computer operator who actually ran a computer way more than I did asked me to explain what it was. I was surprised he didn't know. System 3s had real core memory.

[@epsilontic]

Watching such a report is very insightful. It shows how many of today's concepts had already been established back in the late 1960s, like interactive graphics.

[@Berliner079]

And today my smartphone has more computing power than all the computers shown in the film combined...

[@francisdec1615]

Probably more than all computers on the planet back then.

[@Mxsmanic]

The most striking thing about this documentary is how little things have changed since 1967.

[@AdamsOlympia]

except no one had computers in the 60s except the government and wealthiest businesses and universities. Now there are homeless people with computers in their pocket that are more powerful than every computer in the world of 1967 combined.

[@OfficeofImageArchaeology]

@AdamsOlympia 😁👍🏻 well ya, except for that!

[@theresa42213]

@@AdamsOlympia ~ Indeed!

[@theresa42213]

Mxsmanic ~ l noticed that in the classroom of 12 year old students, the class was diverse, and integrated. l dont know why people decided to become so ''racist'' as they say ...Today, things are a mess. :( l was born in '65 and relations between peoples have gotten so sad. Lord help us.

[@OfficeofImageArchaeology]

@theresa42213 racism was on the decline in this country until about 2014. It was then that the president decided he needed to stir some things up. That same X president is about 60% to blame for everything bad that is going on right now.

[@lordbhz]

I was impressed by children learning Fortran at school

[@RN-hx1rs]

I wonder if these marvelous “computers” will ever catch on?

[@kokomo9764]

I see no future for computers. Just a gimmick!

[@graytonw5238]

A lot of these ideas about the future of computers seem quaint today, but in '67 they were trying to do their best in projecting technology based on what we knew at the time. At 1:50, "...nor is it likely to write a story that the editor will accept"... How could people back then even conceive of AI being capable of writing news stories and novels, or beating world grand masters at chess? Computer science and technology's rise wasn't a gentle upward slope, it was a steep climb in just a few decades.

[@TheRogueX]

1:44 - yet here recently we have AI writing "news" articles for several high-profile sites Watching these videos is just.. fascinating. They were so close to understanding what the future was going to bring but a handful of key inventions just hadn't appeared yet and so they were still so far off. They really had very little idea, in the 1960s, how much the integrated circuit would utterly change the face of computing once the microprocessor was perfected. They definitely had no idea that one day we'd be carrying computers in our pockets that are exponentially more powerful than those giant time-share computers they show in the video.

[@OfficeofImageArchaeology]

Computers will end mankind.

[@rum-ham]

@@OfficeofImageArchaeologyI wouldn't be at all surprised if that ends up being true, eventually

[@justwowmanplays2941]

"Soon it will transform an age, and the future will be unthinkable without the computer." This guy said this at a time when that statement was at minimum 30 years from becoming a reality. The foresight of some people is just amazing.

[@francisdec1615]

Jules Verne predicted the internet already in 1863, though.

[@marcse7en]

Amazing to think that computers were speaking and playing chess BEFORE my Victorian grandfather died! R.I.P. Matt Mattinson 1884 - 1968

[@davidslife989]

Keep up the GREAT work! This will help people understand where our tech of today came from, which is IMPORTANT to understand to where we are going to for our technology future.

[@luizmarxsenjr]

I'm really impressed with how the things have changed in 50 or 60 years, the marvelous of technology, we had on our pockets, in the size of a transistor radio, and with a cost between U$D600 and U$D1000 devices that are lots and lots powerful in comparison with these machines that sure costs (in these days) the price of a house (please correct if I wrong), but now we use it for stupid things... Thanks for your video, greetings from Brazil!!!

[@keithdow8327]

Thanks!

[@OfficeofImageArchaeology]

I want to thank you so much for your Super Thanks, it’s always such a surprise because I receive so few of them. Lol thank you so much for watching. I’m glad you enjoyed it.

[@ShaneHill69]

Man, those computer things look cool, too bad they never really caught on

[@paulcheek5711]

beautiful cars that year too

[@OfficeofImageArchaeology]

Personally, I think the automobile went downhill after 1972 and was completely lost by 1980. The oldest car I’ve ever owned was a 1936 Oldsmobile and the coolest car I’ve ever owned what’s a 1967 Ford Galaxie 500 convertible.

[@vampL3r]

​@@OfficeofImageArchaeologyWith the exception of a 73 Firebird

[@OfficeofImageArchaeology]

@@vampL3r OK I’ll give you that one. I had a 1975 Trans Am and have to say I love that car. The colors were the same as the one that Bert Reynolds drove in that movie smoking the bandit I think.

[@paulcheek5711]

yes my favorite cars ended after 1972. and my grandmother had a brand new 67 galaxy 500 @@OfficeofImageArchaeology

[@bmj7883]

"... nor is it likely to write a story as though the editor will accept." (1m48s)

[@apierion]

“Writing a story is a task the computer may never be able to attain on its own” 😂

[@skipcampbell4226]

If they could see what we have today. They would be in awe! I turn 60 this year. I would have never dreamed it would have come this far. It is mind boggling! And somewhat scary!

[@jennyd255]

Watching this as someone who, back then, was involved in computer hardware and software design, and has since also become an educator I watched this film with a slight sense of bemusement, realising how some of the pervasive misunderstandings of computers held by my generation originally arose. Some explanations, designed so carefully to be accessible to a generation largely unfamiliar with the concepts contained, in hindsight, illustrations that were easy for a lay person to misinterpret, ironically leading to a perception that the computers of the day were more powerful than they really were. For all that, this film was an entertaining watch, and at the time probably did help people to begin to try to understand some of the concepts.

[@AdamsOlympia]

"ironically leading to a perception that the computers of the day were more powerful than they really were." Popular TV and film of the era probably had a lot to do with that perception. Computers were often depicted as having or exceeding human level intelligence. (e.g 2001: A Space Odyssey, Willy Wonka, Lost In Space, etc)

[@MysticalPerson48K]

It's amazing to think that it took Human's 10,000 years to take over the Earth , and Computer Ai can do it in nearly 100 years , by 2030 we will see some major changes in life as we know it today.

[@mikethespike7579]

At the time all the predictions made in the footage will have sounded fantastical and exaggerated to a layman. In fact they hugely underestimated how much computer technology would impact society. At the time of the footage experts thought that the US needs maybe 10 computers. That most people one day would carry these things in their pockets was simply beyond their imagination.

[@geeache1891]

7:34 "... and finally the computer bills the patient for everything ..."

[@MrShobar]

At 15:22, an analog computer is in use at Weston.

[@GeoNeilUK]

There is somethingthat makes me wish Walter Cronkite talked about computers across the world. I'm just imagining him reporting on the fact that the first computer built by a private organisation for commerical use was the LEO. LEO being short for the Lyons Electronic Office. Cronkite: The use of the computer in business was not an American invention... where was it invented... well if I were to tell you that this first business computer was called the Lyons Electronic Office and that's Lyons as in J. Lyons and Company, tea merchant... I think you can already guess that this computer system is in fact British. Where else would the business of tea be so massive, copmplex and so essential to the nation, that it would require a computer to keep track of it?

[@OfficeofImageArchaeology]

That is an interesting fact I was not aware of. I’ve never heard anything like this. It makes sense though. Thanks for sharing. And thank you for watching.

[@Lord_LindaThePhilosopher]

It makes it even more crazy when im watching this on my foldable 😅

[@JimFarm]

Teaching junior high kids Fortran for their geometry class?

[@timport3852]

I thought that was really neat and it's about the right age to start kids on programming.

[@Brian_Of_Melbourne]

I really liked the line the teacher said (16:23): "We must translate that formula into FORTRAN language". I wonder if that was deliberate?

[@James_Bowie]

Ah, banks of flashing lights and spinning tape reels. That's what missing from PC's today.

[@castlebound2010]

The good ol' days of analog computing... No IOT, no standard software, no viruses... Only punched paper cards

[@rum-ham]

We used to be so full of wonder about what the future would bring. That excitement seems to be gone these days.

[@OfficeofImageArchaeology]

I agree with you, I have no confidence in any kind of future that doesn’t spell doom. The bloated, rich, and power-hungry movers and shakers in this world have doomed it. I saw it happening about 20 years ago and began to bury myself in my work. I care nothing for the future, I only try to preserve the past. I am so sorry for anybody under the age of 65 because it is these people that will face the horrors that are soon to come. Thank you for watching.

[@tames307]

The advent of "clickbait" has taught us to not trust most "exciting new things" when they first appear. That's my theory, anyway.

[@JackReynolds-w7g]

When the computer eventually reaches independent thought, Watch the hell out !

[@drpoundsign]

HE didn't know what he was Talking about...LMAO. I didn't watch this documentary yet. The First computers used vacuum tubes. Then, mechanical relays came into play. An array of tiny, doughnut-shaped magnets were used for storage. Transistors were a major breakthrough. The Integrated Circuit, however, with microscopic components-revolutionized Everything. Airplanes, Automobiles, All kinds of Military Technology, were changed Overnight. And, WHO would have THOUGHT that we would almost ALL have small, reasonably-priced personal computers in our HOMES?!? That's Real Jules Verne and "Jetsons" stuff.

[@VK2FVAX]

Informative.

[@BrotherMichaeloftheCross]

If people do not learn to get along with one another, they will get to live without computers.

[@emdxemdx]

@12:30, that Mr Piel outlines the current confidential information protection laws…

[@bjarkih1977]

Many adults would have trouble with FORTRAN today :)

[@AmazingArends]

Pretty good, but they spent a little too much time on the classroom scene at the end, while glossing over other, more interesting aspects of the computer, such as speech production.

[@edwinlim8863]

Time of Change - Digital Process begins

[@dans9463]

Back then, eastern city hubs seem to be the forefront of the computer.

[@thesystemera]

Damn. Thanks for this.

[@eddiemidnite]

Is there a band called 'Two Finger Logic'? If not there should be.

[@saint27573]

These old films missed it by miles . People are getting dummer not smarter . Technology is not helping people to become better . It is helping them to become worse .

[@stanleydavidson6543]

Love that Walter cronkite

[@nicholasmaude6906]

IIRC 1967 was the year ARPANET (The precursor to the Internet) went online. 1967 IIRC was the year my parents met (Mum and Dad got married in 1969). 16:00 - 11 in 1967, that means they were born in 1956 and all of them are now 67, Baby Boomers in their early retirement years.

[@jocknarn3225]

How about "Daisy🎶" HAL?

[@cornjobb]

it's kind of a shame that nobody saw the rise of computer hacking and ransomware being used to break into systems all over the world. at this point in time, it was mostly "there's a great big beautiful tomorrow"

[@OfficeofImageArchaeology]

I have been working with computers and building them for about 15 years. Right now in front of me. I have three that I’m working with, one is video editing, one is digitizing film and I’m making this comment on a third. I love my computers, and the things that I can do with them but if there was a button that I could push that would destroy every computer on earth for eternity. I wouldn’t hesitate for even one second. Computers will make possible, the destruction of mankind. I have no doubt of this. Thank you for watching.

[@dougjohnson4266]

I loved the concern for all the data collection and the idea of being able to see and remove data from your record.

[@t0b0]

​@@dougjohnson4266The data privacy aspect was very prescient. It took almost 20 years for the law to catch up, and only with the GDPR was the idea fully realised.

[@abundantYOUniverse]

Whew! Thank God computers were only a fad.

[@calsavestheworld]

All in one handy portable unit just the size of a Howard Johnson's run by only 17 men.

[@danielaruta8816]

Punchcards

[@psikeyhackr6914]

It's the only way to be sure.

[@stache1954]

Looks like it was all analog.

[@OfficeofImageArchaeology]

That’s all we had back then.

[@RN-hx1rs]

No these are digital computer, just without chips.

[@stache1954]

You're right.@@RN-hx1rs

[@syproful]

The guy even explains it’s about boolean in this film. The paper reels have either a hole or they don’t.

[@holgerhn6244]

6:58... a push button for the Poor.

[@0Light6and3documentary9]

1000😀👍

[@mikem9536]

Computers sure were noisy, lol.

[@vampL3r]

@12:25 Yeah, none of that happened.

[@jimknopf705]

Pure AI :)

[@agranero6]

"it turns symbols no man can understand in to the words that fills his daily newspaper". Ok, I'm done with that. But before I go 1. Really? No man can understand? Who created it? Aliens? 2. "his"? It seems women didn't read newspapers at that time. 3. "what safeguards can be established to prevent its misuse?" ... good way to begin the day: laughing.

[@johnp139]

How primitive.

[@MmntechCa]

Me: "I come from the future year of 2023. Everyone now has a small computer in the pocket thousands of times more powerful than your top mainframes!" 1968 Guy: "Oh, wow, what do you use it for? Scientific research, solving complex business problems, navigating flying cars?" Me: "Well, we mostly use it to watch x-rated videos and make x-rated cartoons. Also rapid communication has allowed entire mobs to get someone fired for a random joke they made 10 years ago. Plus the government and corporations are using it to track everything you say and do. Also you can play games on it that companies use to exploit psychology for money." 1968 Guy: "Well, that sounds... awful. Like one of those dystopian sci-fi movies." Me: "Yeah, that's pretty much the long and short of it."

[@OfficeofImageArchaeology]

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻😂so darn true, thank you for watching.

[@davidslife989]

LOVE IT! Sad but true though!

[@knerduno5942]

Cronkite died in 2009. I do wonder if was interviewed and asked about those smartphones looking in retrospect of what he reported on back then.

[@TheGrobe]

You don’t even need the mob anymore, companies comb private social media and fire automatically out of fear of existence of said mob.

[@abhijitrashinkar]

Hello! you presented it so well, i appreciate, this is the irony of life.

[@dayneallensheetsftm]

I was 15 in 1967 when I wrote my first computer program. I typed it into the computer which then produced a large stack of punch cards. Those cards were then fed into the computer which then told the machine I was programming what to do. I was enthralled and fell in love with computers from that day.

[@vicmac3513]

Did you make your career with computers then?

[@negraiacatalin6595]

I wrote my final university exam in Fortran. I still have one of the punched cards!

[@drpoundsign]

Ad in the back of the TV Guide: "Work in a Growth Industry...be a Keypunch Operator."

[@someguy2135]

This was an episode of the CBS series "The 21st Century" broadcast in the 1960's. Our whole family watched it every week.

[@BenvanBroekhuijsen]

15:31 when he refers to huge memory he most likely was referring to it's physical size, not it's capacity :D

[@johnrickard8512]

I find it amazing that every single one of these predictions ended up coming true in one form or another. Even the one about computers becoming a public service - Yes we have super computers in our pocket, and yet we still interface with publicly accessible servers all the time.

[@mikehylton7194]

Thank you for the proper aspect ratio!

[@OfficeofImageArchaeology]

You’re very welcome, I don’t understand why some fellows distort the picture that way. Personally, I’m old-school. Don’t mess with it if it works. Thank you for watching.

[@SpiritmanProductions]

It's all still here today, just a whole lot smaller, a whole lot faster, and, in some cases, a whole lot more insidious.

[@OfficeofImageArchaeology]

I have been building my own pc’s for about 20 years now. I use 4 in my work almost every day. I have used computers for every thing from playing games to digitizing and preserving incredibly rare photos and documents over the last 25 years. I love my computers and what I can do with them. Civilization has benefited immensely from this invention but if there was a little red button I could push that would destroy all computers worldwide in perpetuity. I would not hesitate for one second. Computers will be the demise of man in the end.

[@SpiritmanProductions]

@@OfficeofImageArchaeology My concern is the fact that the existence of the majority of today's 8 billion people is entirely predicated, and indeed dependent, on something as ephemeral as digital communication and computers. In other words, we have built our castles in the sand. One massive EMP and we're doomed.

[@themegaman91965]

My grandfather, who is 85 started working with computers in 1963, and six decades later, he's still at it! Really interesting time between the peak of the mainframe, and the first microprocessors almost a decade later! He's had quite a few classic punch card stories to tell me, and I remember he used to bring in those larger laptops on a suitcase back when I was a kid in the 90's. This film was quite ahead of it's time. Thanks for the upload!!

[@smarthome2660]

Very cool stroll down memory lane. My dad was a Toll Test Tech for AT&T when it was Michigan Bell. He brought home punch cards and had a few of their teletype machines in our basement. I learned quick and taught myself to program in Basic later, then in college I learned NC & CNC programming. The first computer I ever saw my dad build was an electronic door lock on his dark room in 1969. He is where I got my inspiration to make my home a smart home. Back then though we didn't have Alexa for voice control or WiFi or Bluetooth. I often wonder if there is someone out there with the name George Jetson, & just what his home & life looks like today. I had to laugh when it said "turns symbols that no man can understand". I write web sites in pure HTML & advanced JavaScript. I know 7 computer languages and can read the holes on NC paper tape & punch cards.

[@summersky77]

Soon, the computer will allow man to make TikTok videos from the bathroom of a Walmart.

[@Vapnvibes]

The best part… everything about every person will be put into one computer! From credit, social, where you been and anything you do is how it is today! Zero privacy at all anymore! Sad really!

[@MukbangMukbangMukbang111]

Wow I didn’t know we were already that advanced back then!

[@tristramllewellyn8162]

13:33 Quite accurate, we got the World Wide Web and Google search by the early noughties.

[@drpoundsign]

In 1998, Kasparov could no longer beat Deeper Blue, in Chess. I'm a Physician, and hope that AI can provide Breakthroughs in Alzheimer's Disease and Cancer (or, that something ELSE will.) "Westworld" had Androids (and, lovely "Gynecoid" dancehall girls.) Woody Allen's "The Sleeper" had the Orgasmatron. "Space Odyssey" had "HAL" (IBM minus one letter each.)

[@roberthuff3122]

Regards AI, the same music, different lyrics. Contrafactum.

[@olsencarl]

I wonder if they would have continued progressing the technology if they knew it would all end up being TikTok?

[@dougjohnson4266]

Thank you for presenting this video.

[@OfficeofImageArchaeology]

You’re very welcome, it sounds like you appreciated it. Thank you so much for watching.

[@captainkeyboard1007]

As an avid typist and a microcomputer user as well as technology fan, I relish these old stories, because I enjoy watching people use the microcomputer just like me. Walter Cronkite did a superb job. I would be very sorry if he already died.

[@DoIGetTube]

BE sorry, then. Mr. Cronkite has been dead for years. 😢

[@mikemcgonegal1616]

I worked in a large data processing center in 1967 when I was 19. I was a relative newcomer, just out of high school, and I only got to run the lowly IBM 1401. Even that 'small' computer was the size of about 6 refrigerators strapped together. Even then, the secret geek was evident in me. I used to fantasize about having my own 1401 in my basement at home. God knows what I would have used it for, but I wanted one. What would an individual back then need a computer for? Never really thought that it would actually come to pass. Probably have a dozen or so lying around the house today.

[@BuddyNovinski]

This was in 1967? I wish I had known about computers in 1967. Uncle Walter was right on more so than he must have thought in 1967. He wouldn't have been surprised with the internet, nor You Tube.

[@erinrising2799]

talking to the lady who just gave birth about birth control. like bruh can you at least wait until she is fully conscious

[@joegoldman3065]

One can see the Fantastic impact of Dr Martin Luther King Jr on American society because they did put some black kids in the film if the film been made 7 years before they never would have done that

[@AmazingArends]

And yet, how many black computer programmers are there today? DEI means we have to dumb down the standards for everyone because blacks are not achieving at the level that everyone thought they would be back in the 1960s.

[@DirtyLilHobo]

As far as air traffic, I became an Air Traffic Controller in 1974. Our en-route center had the IBM 9020, essentially three IBM 360s tied together. Its purpose was to process flight plans and create paper flight progress strips. When I arrived, they were in the process of converting the display consoles to a digital display with single-site broadband radar as backup and shrimpboats. There was another huge computer in the basement that did nothing more than write the graphics and write orders generated by the 9020. I went into automation in 1986 and transitioned the computer array to the G-3, which reduced the floor space needed to less than one-fourth of the 9020. By now, I'm sure that some AI has taken over and separation instructions relayed directly to the aircraft with the controller monitoring. Walter Cronkite would be amazed at what we have now. Now, complete news stories are written by AI, biased automatically, and accepted by any news editor. In the not-too-distant future, AI may be designing and manufacturing computers and hardware that mankind will have absolutely no idea how they work. Imagine, “Colossus - The Forbin Project,” becomes an actuality wherein mankind are slaves to superior AI machines!

[@holgerhn6244]

Still there are humans working as air traffic controllers, aren't they? And that was their first example of jobs to be taken over by the computer. The other one being in health care. So off the mark...

[@michaelturner2806]

"The job of the reporter... is still something a computer will not do, nor is it likely to write a story that a city editor will accept." While it should be true, the trick here is to actually lower the standards of acceptability.

[@drpoundsign]

I think an Old 486 processor would do just FINE at The National Enquirer.

[@Tyler_Owen23]

@@drpoundsignor at the Washington post, NYT, NYP, CNN, CBS, ABC. Ect. Our media is our enemy

[@raymundhofmann7661]

It is 2023 and the conputer really amplified the power of the human mind to unbearable heights.

[@syproful]

You are right. The information overload is a fact. It’s today’s weapon. The paradox is that while a computer makes life easier. It certainly doesn’t make it slower. And there is serious knowledge creep on maintaining all systems. Just look at programmers of today. With the high level languages of today. We are far away from the low level instruction sets. It’s impossible to know it all. And I’m afraid we’ll be taking the same road as with the moon landings. That information on how to do things actually gets forgotten. Because we are so high up.

[@dans9463]

Blame computers for cashiers not knowing how to add.

[@J_Calvin_Hobbes]

👍

[@fpostolache]

"Symbols that no human can understand" Stupid: I do !

[@OfficeofImageArchaeology]

Don’t be so critical, the narrator here certainly exaggerated the rarity of those with the ability to read and understand some of these complex computer languages and symbols but you must admit people such as yourself, that have those abilities are not common.

[@AmazingArends]

Very few people can read pure computer language and even fewer if any can read the raw zeros and ones from which everything is translated.

[@fpostolache]

@@AmazingArends What do you mean by pure computer languages ?! Assembler, C, C++, Python, Java, Go ? About 1 and 0, it is called binary code and it is not intended to be read but executed by the machine. It is not a computer language.

[@AmazingArends]

@@fpostolache A programming language such as C++ or python is not machine language, it is an intermediary or go-between between machine language, which practically impossible for most humans to understand and the more English-like languages that programmers use. There are very few humans who can write or understand machine language. A programming language is run through a compiler which converts it to machine language, and vice versa.

[@fpostolache]

@@AmazingArends Thanks for nothing. I have 32 years in the business so don't teach me the alphabet. There are programming languages (high, mid, low level, I can teach you) and there is a binary code, intermediary code bytecode and so on but these are not programming languages: they are just representations of sequences following some rules that the kernel or interpretors will dispatch. About compilation, kernel, console, we can have another chat, maybe you'll learn something.

[@JamsODonnell100]

Thanks for making this available. It helps to make certain concepts a lot clearer. I was particularly taken by the image of the old handset in front of the shared computer (13.51). Dial up in practice - there actually was a phone at the other end !!