2022-05-24
I found this clip stirred memories for me, as in 1968 I had already been trained as a new-fangled "computer programmer" and I was about to start a sandwich course at a polytechnic for a BSc in "Computer Science and Data Processing" (which turned out to be more like Maths and Stats with some computing thrown in as an afterthought).
Looking back to those days I would have rejected out of hand the idea that a computer could control anybody, even in the relatively elementary manner posited - they were nowhere near sufficiently sophisticated, there was no internet, and although radio comms as a technology was clearly feasible it certainly lacked the coverage (unless the controlled person would be held in confinement).
We could just about run a payroll for a large corporation after months / years of development and testing, on machines that read their data off punched cards and then stored it on magnetic tapes - no ubiquitous discs for us at that time. Happy days!
Of course the technologies may have been kept secret for military / black ops purposes. Whilst still a student I joined the local TA as signaller in an artillery regiment. They already had comparatively physically small (compared with a commercial machines) fire control computers installed in the mobile command post. They still required the gunners to set up and aim, load and fire the guns manually, and their interface with the operator was still a technical process that was computer-oriented rather than operator-oriented. I'm assuming that as TA we were not exactly at the forefront in deploying technology, so the real army would have been given more advanced kit.
All of which is only to say that the BBC clip is more likely to be a glimpse of things then still to come rather than a statement of existing technology at that time. Still, the idea that the mentioned "deception" was just as much a hoax as the "moon landings" hadn't occurred to me, and still seems implausible ... but we are learning to challenge more "facts" every day, aren't we?
Enjoy:
(28 minutes)
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