This short 1982 educational film, produced by Dimension Films shortly before the company folded in 1985. The film gives viewers a look at the different ways computers are used in society (specifically, it discusses computer use for creative, machine control, models, and files). The film opens with a shot of a computer in a large room. Children sit around an Apple II computer and monitor. A man uses a computer to generate designs. Dr. Derek Sampson looks at a computer printout of patient names (01:40). He speaks with a young woman waiting for a kidney transplant. A woman carries a kidney in a box into a hospital. Dr. Sampson speaks to the camera about using computers to expedite the process of identifying kidney recipient matches. A woman sketches out a flow chart for a computer program to identify patients in need of kidney transplants to match tissue and blood types (03:42). Dr. Sampson enters the relevant information about a donated kidney into the computer. Groceries are scanned at a grocery store (05:26). The film shows the magnetic tapes in an IBM computer running the bar code processing program. The 62TM drive shown was a magnetic drive capable of storing 10MB of data. Traffic announcers read traffic alerts over the air at Metro Traffic Control, reading updated alerts on computer monitors (06:10) running Instatrak II software, and issuing a SIGALERT for traffic problems. Jerry Curtis checks on GM / Pontiac Camaros being manufactured on an assembly line (07:29). He shows the camera a controller used to control a welding robot on the line. He demonstrates how to program a welding spot line. He then reviews the program on the computer monitor. The film shows the computer system’s electric eye (09:32). Dr. James Blinn sits at a computer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and models a robotic arm for a space vehicle (09:52). The film then shows numbers from another model used to save the El Segundo Blue butterfly. The butterfly eats from a buckwheat flower next to an oil refinery plant. Dr. Richard Arnold observes the buckwheat plants. Dr. Arnold uses a computer in his office to make a mathematical model of ideal numbers of buckwheat plants for the butterflies (12:33). Students use an Apple II computer modeling program at FOLLK (Friends of LISP/Logo & Kids) to understand how fish populations work (13:58). Other students use the program Logo on an Apple II to create graphic art. A man installs a new circuit board in a computer (15:47). Two students discuss making titles for the film (17:10). The girls try running the title; they then debug their coding after the timing of the title doesn’t run correctly. A woman inserts a floppy disc in an office to prepare a report (18:14) on a Xerox 8010 Star — this was the first computer to ship with a mouse. An artist designs a work on a computer using a simple paintbrush program. The film then shows shots of the various people featured in the film working on flowcharts for their computer programs in their respective areas, concluding the film.

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This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com