Computer Trivia Fun OUTER LIMITS 1964 Seen are two UNIVAC 1951 tape drives, Can You Spot other Tech?

[@bblod4896]

I remember that show. To think that we were thinking of gene manipulation in 1964 is amazing. Thanks CHAP.

[@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject]

You are most welcome! I think the writers for Outer Limits were way ahead of their time, in some episodes...

[@joesauer8068]

I used to work on tape drives like that in 1979. They were awesome machines! The rewind speed was 750 inches per second!

[@garthhowe297]

Computers were way cooler when they had spinning tapes, and lots of flashing lights.

[@guillermodiego819]

Loved this, a room with a full lineup of these Uniservos plus lights and beeps is what the future should be

[@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject]

Yes, agreed!

[@abbush2921]

You do not compute , we do not compute .

[@RetroElijah1982]

Well, will you look at that. Tom Hagen before he was Consigliere to Don Corleone, I've seen a rerun or 2 of The Outer Limits. That's a cool looking machine that Uniservo, great video CHAP

[@johnopalko5223]

I loved _The Outer Limits._ My eight-year-old self was glued to the TV every Monday night, even if it did scare me half to death. Those were the palmier days of television, when a nominal one-hour show had 52 minutes of content. Only 13% of the hour was wasted on commercials, promos, and bumpers. I know there was a reboot in 1995 but I never watched it.

[@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject]

I have to admit that I was also glued to the TV for these same episodes. The plots, acting and music were so mesmerizing. A quality of sci fi viewing I miss these days. Thanks very much for your feedback on this! ~ VK

[@djowen5192]

Could it play Doom 😂

[@JimCoder]

In 1980 I used a Univac at Sperry Flight Systems in Phoenix. Talk about a dinosaur! Their FORTRAN compiler reported syntax errors as numerical codes that you'd then have to look up in a big paper manual. Why they didn't just print out the error text instead of that numeric code, I will never know. That just didn't make sense. No one else questioned it though. They were still using assembly language for their product source code. LOL!

[@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject]

Hi @JimCoder, that is a great story, thank you! Those units often rand for years (decades?). Assembly product code, wow!

[@RottnRobbie]

The reason for using numeric error codes should be obvious with a little bit of thought. At the time that the compiler you were using in 1980 would've been written (probably mid-60s), most computers wouldn't have had enough RAM to hold all the message text, and at the mid-60s price of additional memory (and disk/drum storage) it's just a WHOLE LOT CHEAPER to have a human go look up what the error code means. . For instance, Wikipedia says the Univac 9200 from that era topped out at a maximum of 82KB, and I'd bet the compiler was written to run on machines with the minimum configuration of just 8KB. (Note - that's not 8 GigaBytes. Not even 8 Megabytes. 8 KILOBYTES = *8,048 bytes* total!). A hundred error messages of 40 characters each, would take 4,000 bytes - pretty much half the memory of a small machine.

[@nowacurmudgeon]

I saw 2 different episodes that used IBM 407 plug boards.

[@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject]

Hi @nowacurmudgeon, yes, they made good movie props back in the day. I am not sure how many people recognize them today.

[@winstonsmith478]

At 1:48 is a plugboard programming panel from something.

[@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject]

Hi @winstonsmith478, yes... good spotting... hoping someone can identify. It's a large one...(!)

[@johnopalko5223]

I'm guessing from an IBM unit record machine of some sort, possibly a tabulator (officially called an Accounting Machine).

[@dalecomer5951]

DNA is not mentioned in the clip per se, only "genes," even though James Watson made his monumental deduction about the structure of DNA in 1952 or '53. Of course, DNA is itself an encoding. Not one of my favorite sci-fi sbows although the original intro is memorable. Any way, you can't fool aliens that easily.

[@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject]

Hi @dalecomer5951, as you say.. "you can't fool aliens that easily." Love it! That is so right!

[@laetlaet6130]

ألماضي آلجميل كان رائعا

[@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject]

thank you for the feedback !