Whatever You Do, Don't Shout "Cut"

The Story of the Indiana Jones Bridge Scene

The night before I said to Steven [Spielberg], whatever you do, if you stop cameras don’t shout-out “cut,” just shout-out “stop cameras,” because I might go and cut the bridge.

(via Academy Originals)

(Revised and republished April 12th, 2025)

IBM System/360 - 50th anniversary

IBM recently celebrated the 50th anniversary of the System/360 mainframe, which was announced on April 7, 1964.

IBM press announcement text for the System/360, 1964 (Wayback Machine link)

IBM System/360 at the Computer History Museum

The System/360, or S/360 is discussed in this IBM video, “IBM Centennial Film: They Were There.”

youtu.be/XrhDaAmn5… (video no longer available)

Also from IBM, System 360: From Computers to Computer Systems (Wayback Machine link):

Most significantly, the S/360 ushered in an era of computer compatibility—for the first time, allowing machines across a product line to work with each other. In fact, it marked a turning point in the emerging field of information science and the understanding of complex systems. After the S/360, we no longer talked about automating particular tasks with “computers.” Now, we talked about managing complex processes through “computer systems.”

(Revised and republished April 1st, 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)

I Desire to Become Data

Fragments on Machines, a film by Emma Charles

An interesting and very artistic take on the materiality of digital culture, and the physical structures that support modern communication, computation, and data storage. The ventilation covers and shafts in the beginning of the video seem so mundane, but just a few steps inside is an entire world of noise and movement.

My muscle has been replaced by flex and copper. My brain a server. Ones and zeros my voice. I exist as a phantom, an iridescent color. I speak in shimmering tones to the hidden construction of the form. I desire to become data.

(Revised and republished April 13th, 2025)

The Holmdel Computer Center - AT&T archives

There’s some interesting artwork on the timeshare computer…reminds me of the “nose art” on military aircraft. In my archival research I’ve come across a few instances of pinup-style material, especially ASCII art printouts.

The video below is from 1973, slightly after the timeframe of my research, but certainly interesting.

The Holmdel Computer Center, Part 1 – AT&T Archives (Wayback Machine link)

The year was 1973, and the computer operating system UNIX, invented at Bell Labs by Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie, had just morphed into its third iteration or improvement, and had just been rewritten in the C programming language. This film, made as an orientation for the computer center at the Bell Labs Holmdel location, is a rare glimpse into the operations and procedures of an early 1970s research-oriented computing center. And as the 1973 Holmdel Computer Center only had IBM computers, it wasn't running a UNIX installation: the system was only ported to IBM computers in the years to come. In 1973, UNIX as a system was limited to installations on DEC computers, and there were UNIX installations at other locations of Bell Laboratories such as Indian Hill, Whippany, and, of course, Murray Hill (where UNIX and C were developed). Computers in the Bell System weren't just relegated to computer science or the development of computer language. They were employed for all kinds of complex engineering calculations, telecommunications applications, and, very occasionally, for making art and music.

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)