Bell Labs Film on Shaping the Computer Age from 1984 - AT&T Archives

See more from the AT&T Archives at http://techchannel.att.com/archives

This film shows the history of computer design innovation within the Bell System, including the computer hardware AT&T Computer Systems (a division of AT&T from 1984-1995) sold, and the applications those systems were best used for. The computers were mainly marketed to businesses, rather than home users.

The computers shown in this video are the 3B2, the 3B5, and the 3B20D. The 3B2 was the first desktop "supermicrocomputer" with a 32-bit processor, running UNIX. The 3B5 was huge — the size of a dishwasher, reportedly — and if you added a reel-to-reel tape drive, the size ballooned to the equivalent of a small fridge. The 3B5 had the WE-32000 processor also, aka the Bellmac32A. The 3B20D computer originally powered the 4ESS in the Bell System — an electronic telephone switcher. Because these were specialized switchers, they were slow to be phased out — over a hundred were still in use as late as 2008. That same computer also was the basis for the first 5ESS machines.

AT&T Computer Systems, as a company, was formed in order to leverage Bell Labs brainpower in the computer field, and served as a path for AT&T to enter the computer hardware market. AT&T-CS existed from 1984 to 1996.

Footage Courtesy of AT&T Archives and History Center, Warren, NJ

Note that the brief glitch at 0:53 was also present in the original source material.

Видео Bell Labs Film on Shaping the Computer Age from 1984 - AT&T Archives канала AT&T Tech Channel