# "THE THINKING MACHINE" 1968 NEW JERSEY BELL TELEPHONE COMPANY MIT COMPUTERS EDUCATIONAL FILM 61454

This film titled “The Thinking Machine” is a 1968 educational film from the Bell Telephone Company (Bell System) that shows the development of “thinking machines,” or computers. It is written by Saul Fingerman, directed by Henry R. Feinberg, produced by Sol Dworkin, and photographed by Sid Milstein with animations by John Snyder. The film uses animations to show how a computer’s memory, information processing, and recognition processes work. The film opens with clips of various computers from science fiction movies and television shows and uses animations to show early man counting with stones, an abacus, and other methods of counting developed over the centuries. It also features footage from the New Jersey Bell Telephone Company switching office and of MIT computers, library computers, etc. Credits ( 00:09 ). Dramatized science fiction themed footage ( 00:13 ). A computer room explosion ( 00:44 ). Footage from the television series “Lost in Space” and the fictional character ‘the Robot’ ( 00:58 ). Animated introduction ( 01:21 ). “The Thinking Machine” title banner ( 01:29 ). A robot animation explains the “Data Bank Dictionary” ( 01:42 ). An animation of a student taking a test ( 02:07 ). The animated robot displays automatic operation through data memory devices ( 02:15 ). Animations of prehistoric man explaining memory ( 02:30 ), tradesmen use an Abacus ( 02:52 ), AD XXVII carved in rock ( 03:03 ), ancient Rome ( 03:08 ), and a domestic scene ( 03:11 ). Light bulbs…

- Kind: Educational
- Genres: Education, Industrial and advertising
- Archive: [Internet Archive](https://archive.org/details/61454-the-thinking-machine-vwr)
- Licence or status: [CC BY-NC-ND 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) (as the archive states it)
- Who can watch: Tweens profiles and older (the archive gives no rating; placed by Invisible Network from its collection and subjects)

Not offered: what its record states (its uploader's public-domain mark, or a licence not shown to be its rights holder's) leaves its US term to decide, and it is dated 1968; under US law a work of that year is free only on facts the site does not hold for it (its US renewal records, or its own country's term on 1 January 1996 for a work published abroad), and otherwise its US term runs to the end of 2063. Unclear is not offered.