The Machine That Changed the World

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 British Broadcasting Corporation . Backers included the Association for Computing Machinery, the National Science Foundation , and the UNISYS Corporation . The first three episodes deal with the history of fully electronic general-purpose digital computers from the ENIAC 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 , and others. The fourth episode (" The Thinking Machine ") explores the topic of artificial intelligence. 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 Frontline narrator Will Lyman .