# COUNTING TOOLS 1970s COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY MAINFRAMES 58984

Made by Victor and Ellen Landweber, this film was made just before the moment that home computing became widespread. The film is filled with imagery of early computers, and also presents the concept of the "counting machine" starting with the abacus and moving through history to the mechanical computer ( 1:50 ). Charles Babbage's counting machine is shown at 2:12 . At 2:32 , integrated circuits are presented and electronic circuits described. Basic concepts such as Input, Storage, Control, Arithmetic and Output are described next. Various components are seen including punch cards at 3:50 , magnetic data tape at 4:20 , and magnetic discs at 4:25 . At 4:46 an early pen tablet is seen in use. At 6:00 a dot matrix type printer is seen at work and at 6:20 a teletype. Early monitors are shown at 6:20 . At 7:20 binary number systems are seen in use on a computer's display. At 7:40 , a man is seen typing instructions into a computer. At 8:20 , computers are seen in a high school that is equipped with a computer controlled by punch cards. At 8:57 an IBM 1800 computer is shown being used to control a chemical plant. At 9:30 a mission control or ground station for a satellite is shown. At 9:48 , more punch cards are seen keeping tabs on credit card and bank accounts. Section of this film were created at the Rand Corporation in Santa Monica, California. The IBM 1800 Data Acquisition and Control System (DACS) was a process control variant of the IBM 1130 with two extra instructions (CMP…

- Kind: Film
- Genres: Science, Industrial and advertising
- Archive: [Internet Archive](https://archive.org/details/58984Computers)
- Licence or status: none stated by the archive
- Who can watch: Tweens profiles and older (the archive gives no rating; placed by Invisible Network from its collection and subjects)

[Watch now](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/watch/archive/ia/58984Computers?play=1)