Vintage 1960s Era Film Shows IRS Defending Its Use of Computers 146
coondoggie (973519) writes "It's impossible to imagine the Internal Revenue Service or most other number-crunching agencies or companies working without computers. But when the IRS went to computers — the Automatic Data Processing system --there was an uproar. The agency went so far as to produce a short film on the topic called Right On The Button, to convince the public computers were a good thing."
Original Source (Score:5, Informative)
For those not interested in helping useless middle-man ad farms, here's the original source on the National Archives website (including the YouTube video):
How Computers Changed the Tax Game [archives.gov]
Re:Excuse me? (Score:3, Informative)
We all know we only have computers because of NASA and space. Although computers can be used to add and subtract vast reams of numbers, back then governments and corporations were too stupid to see this. Only though space exploration do we have the computers we have today. Charles Babbage? Konrad Zuse? All lies. There were no computers before about 1961.
Alan Turing 1941?
John von Neumann?
ENIAC 1948?
Anything?
No?
to view yon video... (Score:0, Informative)
To view the video is a security nightmare. The website wants scripts and trash from about 8 other sites. I allowed 4 of them for the cokkie-roulette dance routine - and the number of friends they invited jumped to 100. Link it or lump it. I don't need to see this that badly that 100+ website can have a go at tracking me. BTW there's a credible story around that /. portscans you when you post. Nice.
Re:Uproar? (Score:4, Informative)
Reminds me of another joke:
A man wakes up to the noise of a burglar in his garden shed, so he calls the police who tell him there's nobody available to respond. He hangs up, waits a minute and then calls the police and tells them "don't worry about the burglar, I've shot him". Very soon, the multiple police cars turn up and are able to catch the burglar in the act. A policeman accusingly says to the man "you said you shot him", he replies "you said nobody was available".