The film presents electronic computation as a practical means of turning immense quantities of information into usable knowledge. Through control rooms, data-processing machinery, storage devices, and operators at work, the film shows computers serving scientific research, engineering, defense, and space flight.
It begins with scientific and technical settings in which instruments record information about atomic energy and the environment of space. Workers sit at consoles, inspect equipment, and handle printed output while the narration explains that electronics supports a guidance and telemetering network. At a data-processing center, calculations that would require thousands of hours are converted into punched cards and fed into computers, producing information that may influence future space missions.
The film then connects computation with other large analytical problems. High-speed computers solve thousands of calculations needed to complete the Unisphere by April 1964. Another sequence describes research that determines how much of a chemical will control pests while establishing quantities that other forms of life can tolerate; machinery and field equipment illustrate the movement from accumulated data to practical trials.
Large computer installations fill the later footage. The narration identifies IBM as responsible for designing, manufacturing, installing, and maintaining especially large and complex computers, while Air Force crews require programs and continued training to use a related system proficiently. Operators stand before banks of tape drives and illuminated control panels. One calculator performs 14,000 arithmetic operations per second, and a reel of magnetic tape can hold more than two million digits.
Finally, the film demonstrates how information reaches a computer. Close views show punched cards, reel-to-reel magnetic tape, and a removable magnetic disk; the narration adds that users can also enter information through a typewriter or draw diagrams with a special pen. By converting these different inputs into machine-readable form, computers make many kinds of complex work manageable, supporting the film’s concluding assertion that new uses for them are found every day.
