Modern Marvels - Computers (DVD, 2005)

This is an excellent DVD title for anyone who wishes to teach Computer History to students, or for students wishing a little more than the 2 minutes that most books and TV shows give to computer history and the important historical figures. It is comparable to the renowned, but probably lesser known "The Machine That Changed The World", co-produced by WGBH Boston and PBS in 1993. This title runs only 52 min. versus the "..Changed The World" series which runs 6 hours total and is a compilation of a 6-part series run on PBS television. Another advantage of this title is that it is DVD; whereas "..Changed The World" is only available on VHS. I was fortunate enough to be able to convert that to DVD, but at much expense of personal time and effort.

The History Channel really did a great job on this, as they covered many of the crucial figures in the history and development of the computer, but left out a number of lesser well known, but equally important scientists and engineers whose inventions led to the modern day computer age. They got Babbage, Turing, Eckert & Mauchly, and Englebart, but left out Zuse, Kilby, Gates, Metcalf, Mintner, and Wang. Excellent footage of early computers including the ENIAC, EDVAC, UNIVAC, and early IBM, Remington, Sperry, Honewell mainframes. Microcomputers including Apple I-II, IBM-PC, and the MAC, were covered and depicted, such as the Xerox PARC Alto, but not thoroughly explained as they were in "..Changed The World". Nor did they cover the importance of computers and microprocessors to the field of Robotics or the field of Artificial Intelligence.

On the whole I believe it's an excellent introduction, for either a shorter course, 4-8 weeks say, versus a regular 12 or 16 week semester where "..Changed The World" might be more suitable. With the fact that one doesn't have to go out and buy a VHS-to-DVD converter or hire a professional service to convert the "..Changed The World" title to DVD, this is a "plug-and-play" (pun intended!) winner in my opinion.

Marc Busch
Computer Technology Instructor