ATT Archives: Seeing the Digital Future (1961)

For more from the AT T Archives, visit In 1961, the digital future was just starting to come to fruition. And the Bell System had a number of products that had either just come onto the market, or were incipient, that implemented these new computer technologies. In December 1960, AT T had just announced an investment of 2. 5 billion for satellite communications and improving the network for data services and computer communication. In 1958, AT T had just announced its first modem. Springing from technologies used for the computerized navigation of missiles, the modem, i. e. the DataPhone, was rolled out in a few markets in the midwest. It would be made commercially available throughout the network by 1960. The DataPhone could transmit at up to a bitrate of 110 bits per second. This film breaks into approximately two parts part I: the problems of the present, and part II: the way those problems could be solved by the technology of th