The BBC Archive on YouTube

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Computer history from the BBC

These are the BBC Archive videos I watched today. I enjoyed them from a historical point of view. I also enjoyed them relating to computers today. There are so many topics that are still pertinent today, and it was interesting how what was said then actually played out. There were several more videos, but I'm ready to put that aside and do something else.
Discussions of A.I. was interesting comparing A.I. then and A.I. today. The Y2K issue was interesting. I lived through it, and was one of several people in our department that visited every computer in our hospital to make sure the operating systems were updated. I was also the programmer that work on assisting our pharmacy vendor installing and converting data from our old system to the new system, as well interfacing ADT. It does not bother me that people say the y2k issue was a hoax because it just shows they are an idiot because so many people worked are to make sure it did not have an impact.
The whole working from home got a good test during the pandemic. Since no one was in the office, I continued to work from there. I find it fascinating how many of my ex coworkers talk about going into the office, when in fact they didn't and they were not that productive at home. Not all were unproductive, but our manager/director gave them more credit then they were worth.
The BBC Archive has many videos concerning computers. The only place I saw anything like there in the United States was on PBS.

BBC Archive
1983: Meet the COMPUTER ADDICTS | Newsnight | Retro Tech | BBC Archive
length 8:23
1970: Could MACHINES Become INTELLIGENT? | Horizon | Past Predictions | BBC Archive
length 42:51
1982: Can COMPUTERS THINK? | The Computer Programme | Retro Technology | BBC Archive
length 23:03

1967: The Man With a HOME COMPUTER | Tomorrow's World | Retro Tech | BBC Archive
length 3:19
1979: Will WORD PROCESSORS start a HOME WORKING revolution? | Past Predictions | BBC Archive
length 11:12
1986: The Joy of E-MAIL | Micro Live | Retro Tech | BBC Archive
length 10:11
1997: What is the MILLENNIUM BUG? | Week In Week Out | Retro Tech | BBC Archive
length 29:24

1969: Computer Banking and the end of Cash | Tomorrow's World | Retro Tech | BBC Archive
length 42:52
1966: COMPUTER DATING - 1960s style | Tomorrow's World | Retro Tech | BBC Archive
length 8:28
1982: The Future of COMPUTER STORAGE | The Computer Programme | Retro Tech | BBC Archive
length 12:09

Computer History Archives Project ("CHAP")
Not BBC, but it was interesting. All I could think about was the Cray computer of the future, and how our computers today are far faster, and have much more memory the a million words of storage. They did not say if they defined a word as 16 bit or 8 bit, or possibly some other funky number of bits per unit. I found that it had a 32 bit word length.

Computer History: World's FASTEST Computer! 1961-1964 film & photos (IBM Stretch supercomputer)
length 12:18

I enjoy these videos as well. It brings me back to a time I didn't physically experience. My favourite video was the one where they introduce the mobile phone, it makes me realise how much I take for granted the little rectangle device in my pocket.

As a side note, if you enjoy these videos for the nostalgia, the series computer chronicles which is available on YouTube is an excellent watch, it's leans more into the geeky type of things but it's sasfying for an early tech enthusiast.