''The Machine That Changed the World'' (1992) (broadcast under the alternative title "The Dream Machine" in the UK, with different narration) is a 5-episode television series on the history of electronic digital computers. It was written and directed by Nancy Linde, and produced by WGBH Television of Boston, Massachusetts, and the

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. Backers included the Association for Computing Machinery, the

National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National ...

, and the

UNISYS Unisys Corporation is an American multinational information technology (IT) services and consulting company headquartered in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania. It provides digital workplace solutions, cloud, applications, and infrastructure solutions, ...

Corporation. The first three episodes deal with the history of fully electronic general-purpose digital computers from the

ENIAC ENIAC (; Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) was the first programmable, electronic, general-purpose digital computer, completed in 1945. There were other computers that had these features, but the ENIAC had all of them in one pac ...

through desktop microcomputers. The pre-history of such machines is examined in the first episode ("Giant Brains"), and includes a discussion of the contributions of Charles Babbage, Ada Lovelace,

Alan Turing Alan Mathison Turing (; 23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954) was an English mathematician, computer scientist, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher, and theoretical biologist. Turing was highly influential in the development of theoretical co ...

, and others. The fourth episode ("The Thinking Machine") explores the topic of

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech r ...

. The fifth episode ("The World at Your Fingertips") explores the then-newly-emerging worldwide networking of computers. All episodes begin and end with a song by Peter Howell, "Stellae matutinae radius exoritur" ("The morning star's ray arises") and are narrated by long-time ''

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'' narrator

Will Lyman William Lyman (born May 20, 1948) is an American voice-over artist, actor, and musician. Being known for his polished, resonant voice, Lyman has narrated the PBS series '' Frontline'' since its second season in 1984 and played William Tell in t ...

External links

*
Video resource guide at American University Computing History MuseumSynopsis of Episode 1, "Giant Brains" at waxy.orgSynopsis of Episode 2, "Inventing the Future", at waxy.orgSynopsis of Episode 3, "The Paperback Computer", at waxy.org

Synopsis of Episode 4, "The Thinking Machine", at waxy.orgSynopsis of Episode 5, "The World at Your Fingertips", at waxy.org
1990s American documentary television series Documentary television series about computing {{documentary-tv-film-stub