Discover Computing History at the University of Minnesota
Travel back in time with this TV advertisement for the new “Super Computer” — made in Minnesota.
Courtesy of umnLibraries
Published January 9, 2015
Additional Videos
In Your Defense
This historical video discusses the creation of a 1950s national air defense system designed to identify and protect the United States against air attacks from hostile countries. The Semi-Automatic Ground Environment computing system, or SAGE, was a collaborative project across government agencies, universities, and various computing companies. Although SAGE was a massive undertaking, it resulted in a novel digital, networked system that could operate in real time and was used from 1963-1984.
This clip is part of the Burroughs Corporation Records, housed at the Charles Babbage Institute at the University of Minnesota.
Watch the video in the UMedia Archive
Unisys: A New Power Under the Sun
This promotional video for the computer company Unisys not only contains an amazing soundtrack, it provides valuable insight into the size and scope of the company and on what kinds of projects it was working in the late 1980s. Unisys, short for United Information Systems, was formed in 1986 when Burroughs Corporation acquired Sperry Corporation. The merger made Unisys the second largest computer company in the world at the time.
This clip is part of the Burroughs Corporation Records, housed at the Charles Babbage Institute at the University of Minnesota.
Watch the video in the UMedia Archive
The Road Ahead
Released in 1974, this is a public service film made by the Commercial Credit Company, a subsidiary of Control Data Corporation. The film interviews businessmen, professors, and government officials in order to explore what the business world will look like in the year 1980. Predictions, in part, revolve around the ways in which energy will be used, how transportation will work, and how money will be handled. The film is an interesting window into American business and society’s reactions to the 1970s energy crisis.
This clip is part of the Control Data Corporation Records, housed at the Charles Babbage Institute at the University of Minnesota.
Watch the video in the UMedia Archive
Watch this video to learn more about the history of punched card tabulating systems and how this technology influenced the development of modern-day computers.
Produced by the Computer History Archives Project
Vacuum tubes were a critical component of many early computing systems. Watch this video to learn more about how they worked and contributed to the improvement of computing technologies through the mid-twentieth century.
Produced by the Computer History Archives Project
The Sperry Rand UNIVAC Scientific computer was a popular system in the mid-1950s that evolved out of Minnesota-based Engineering Research Associate’s 1101 computer. Watch this video to see vintage images of the UNIVAC Scientific, released in 1956.
Produced by the Computer History Archives Project