4 ms·
BBC iPlayer – Horizon – 1977-1978: Now the Chips Are Down
- jsingleton 11y agoAn interesting show to watch. A surprisingly accurate prediction of the future. It seems people have been talking about the issue of machines replacing jobs long before many of us were born. First transmitted in 1978, Horizon examines the rise of the microprocessor and asks if automation presents a problem for the future of British industry. Edit: Here's the show on YouTube for those that can't get iPlayer or don't want to install Flash: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HW5Fvk8FNOQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HW5Fvk8FNOQ
- walshemj 11y agoI think this was the show that inspired the BBC micro
- jonathonf 11y agoThis is one of two videos that are excellent (I've used both during teaching). The other is "Brain In The Box" filmed at Manchester Uni during the 50s*. In BitB, apart from giving an excellent low-level view of how computation actually works, the interviewee sets out how computers would have to get smaller in order to get faster. Keeping in mind this was a decade prior to the microchip, he showed a small cube (about the size of four standard Rubix cubes) and compared it to the current room filled with (what I think was) the Manchester Mark 1 [1]. (This one is quite difficult to find, though. I grabbed it when the BBC Archives were briefly made available as part of a trial around 2006.) From this video, the most interesting part for me is the discussion at the end. At around 1h14 Rick Mclean (sp, basically a 'think tank' member) says that in order to deal with the existing "work ethic" in the face of massive unemployment due to automation, the country would need a produce a generation who "didn't want to work" and wouldn't mind not having a job. Cue the next 30 years of social policy? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester_Mark_1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester_Mark_1