Video: AT&T Tech Channel - How a Computer Works. Great Tutorial From 1962

See more from the AT&T Archives at http://techchannel.att.com/archives

The only film so far found in the AT&T Archives, and posted here, that was NOT made by AT&T or any of the company's subsidiaries. However, this film was part of the Bell Labs film library, a resource utilized by Labs engineers. This film was made by the U.S. Navy in order to explain the simplest elements of computers and how they worked.

Digital Computer Techniques was a film series introduction to the essential elements of computer and how they worked. The series was made by Audio Productions, Inc., a company that made a lot of films for the Bell System as well. Here's what the entire series consisted of at the time:

• Digital Computer Techniques: Introduction (the film posted here) This gives a history of what kind of counting devices led to the creation of a computer; from fingers to stones to slide rules. In this film, the word "computer" seems to still be about number crunching.
• Digital Computer Techniques: Computer Logic Part I The binary number system, logic as it is applied to computers, what "code" is.
• Digital Computer Techniques: Computer Logic Part II, Symbology (also called "Logic Element Circuits") Explains transistors, AND, OR, NOR, INVERTER and FLIP-FLOP gates. Shows how circuits affect binary signals to produce output.
• Digital Computer Techniques: Computer Units Explains the 5 parts of a computer—i.e. input, storage, control, output, and arithmetic, as well as what sequencing, clocking and timing have to do with the processing.
• Digital Computer Techniques: Programming Explains programming via the use of flow charts and symbols, and what computer language is.

Note: As this film was made by the U.S. Navy, and at the time one of the Navy's star computer experts was then-Commander Grace Hopper, one hopes for a cameo... sadly, she's not here, in the introduction film, at least.

Footage Courtesy of AT&T Archives and History Center, Warren, NJ