More robot costumes, but in 1968

Speaking of people in robot costumes, this British Pathé video shows “Miss Honeywell” in 1968. (via Paleofuture)

 

A Computer is Quite Dead

Man and Computer: A Perspective, IBM, 1967 (Computer History Museum).

“In studying the principals, the first point is that a computer is quite dead. It can do nothing without someone to give instructions.” (4:05)

“But computers have no originality, no initiative.” (19:15)

Hyper-Reality

Hyper-Reality on Vimeo was posted 9 years ago, but it feels like the not-so-distant future, like in the next 5 minutes.

Visualizing History

Histography is a data visualization project by Martin Stauber, and it’s pretty amazing.

“Histography" is interactive timeline that spans across 14 billion years of history, from the Big Bang to 2015. The site draws historical events from Wikipedia and self-updates daily with new recorded events. The interface allows for users to view between decades to millions of years. The viewer can choose to watch a variety of events which have happened in a particular period or to target a specific event in time. For example you can look at the past century within the categories of war and inventions.

The project reminds me of The Fifth Element when Leeloo is researching “War." It’s not the interface, but the way so much information can be visualized in such a compact form – it can be a bit overwhelming.

(Revised and republished April 12th, 2025)

Anything Mechanical, Give it a Good Bash

“Percussive Maintenance,” by Duncan Robson

What a great supercut. Montage videos like this are good conversation starters, and they help run a thread through seemingly disparate genres of film and history.

(Revised and republished April 12th, 2025)

The Machine That Changed the World - video series

Thanks to Andy Baio, all five parts of The Machine That Changed the World are available online: http://waxy.org/2008/06/the_machine_that_changed_the_world/

The Machine That Changed the World is the longest, most comprehensive documentary about the history of computing ever produced, but since its release in 1992, it's become virtually extinct. Out of print and never released online, the only remaining copies are VHS tapes floating around school libraries or in the homes of fans who dubbed the original shows when they aired.

All 5 episodes are (sort of) available on YouTube.

The YouTube videos are blocked now, “on copyright grounds,” but they still play after a moment.

(Revised and republished April 2nd, 2025)

The Holmdel Computer Center - Part 2

The Holmdel Computer Center, Part 2 – AT&T Archives (Wayback Machine link)

This rare look inside a Bell Labs computer center, specifically the one at the Holmdel location, which was referred to internally as the “HOCC” or the “HO CC”. This film was made as orientation for new employees who would need to use the computer center, and this, part 2 of 2 (see part 1), is about the programming center within the HOCC. One thing that’s notable about this film — different from Part 1 — is the preponderance of women working in the Programmer Services area. Around 1966, 7 years before this film was made, there were over 500 women working in “technical work” at Bell Labs, rather than administrative work, and many were in computing. A book and blog by Nathan Ensmenger examines the sociological history of computing, and why during the 1980s the computing field became more and more the province of men. Stories about women in the early decades of computing still reside in the world of the personal anecdote; it’s hard to assess the exact data on how many women worked in the field in the 1960s and 1970s.

The original video isn’t available on the Wayback Machine, but the YouTube version is embedded below.

(Revised and republished April 2nd, 2025)

UCLA Differential Analyzer - 1948 film

UCLA’s 1948 Mechanical Computer Was Simply Gorgeous To Watch in Action (Wayback Machine link), by Matt Novak at Paleofuture, 2013.

I’ll need to get more information on the film clip’s provenance – it’s shown here through Gizmodo’s Vimeo channel without a source reference. It’s listed in the Paleofuture article as released by Popular Science via Paramount Pictures, 1948 (possibly through Shields Pictures Inc.).

More information at UCLA, Historical Research Highlights, “The Thinking Machine”

In December of 1977, the last working model of a mechanical differential analyzer in the world is donated by UCLA to the Smithsonian Institution for its pioneering computing display. The differential analyzer introduced much of Southern California industry to automatic computing, but became obsolete beginning in 1960 as it was replaced by computing machines with electronic circuits and vacuum tubes. From 1960 on, it was used mainly as a display piece, clanking away occasionally for student and public demonstrations.

Two more video clips of the UCLA differential analyzers at the Computer History Museum: http://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/analog-computers/3/143

(Revised and republished April 2nd, 2025)

Paperwork Explosion

This video, created by Jim Henson in 1967 for IBM, makes a great first post. So much anxiety, so little time, if only there was someone to help…like IBM!

Ben Kafka discusses this video in the Conclusion of his book, The Demon of Writing: Powers and Failures of Paperwork (2012), and also in this online West 86th article (Wayback Machine link):

The “paperwork explosion” expresses both a threat and a wish. The threat, of course, is that we are being overwhelmed by paperwork’s proliferation, its explosion — a threat that historian Ann Blair has recently traced through the early modern period. The wish is to convert all this cumbersome matter into liberating energy, which is exactly what explosions do. From Chaptal’s “electric fluid” to IBM’s “Machines Should Work, People Should Think” to USA.gov’s “Government Made Easy,” we remain attached to the idea that someday, somehow, we can liberate this energy, put it to other uses.

The “liberating energy” that Kafka speaks of also requires containment, it needs direction and control, services which IBM was ready to supply.

Two other aspects of paperwork which I’m researching are: (1) the degree to which IBM was instigating the “paperwork explosion” itself, where was it coming from, who else was worried about it, and (2) how the militaristic response to the demands of paperwork figure into the Cold War environment.

(Revised and republished April 6th, 2025)

Quantum Computing 101

Quantum Computers Animated, Piled Higher and Deeper (PHD Comics)

The illustrations for this video on quantum computing are fantastic, especially the "0/1" transition at 1:40.

(via Hacker News)

(Revised and republished April 19th, 2025)

Lake Tahoe Milky Way Night Time Lapse on Vimeo

Lake Tahoe Milky Way Night Time Lapse

(Revised and republished April 21st, 2025)