Part 1
Part 2
Computer pioneer Gordon Bell hosts this two-part program on the evolution of electronic computing from its pre-World War II origins through the development of the first commercial computers. His narration traces the development of the stored program computer architecture which remains the foundation of todays modern computers.
In Part 1 The builders of the first five computer machines: the Bell Labs Model 1, the Zuse Z1-3, the Atanasoff-Berry Computer, the Harvard Mark 1 and the IBM SSEC tell their stories.
In Part 2 Vintage films and first hand accounts enliven the stories of the ENIAC and the three lines of computing machines descended from it: the Eckert-Mauchly EDVAC, BINAC and UNIVAC; Maurice Wilkes EDSAC; and John Von Neumanns IAS machines and their clones, the ILLIAC, MANIAC, etc.