This week, Truman Bradley is excited to show us a keyboard on which the keys play sounds from the English language.  Maybe I’m not appreciating this leap in technology, but it is pretty unimpressive.  He says the goal is to create “a machine that translates a given text from one language to another.”  So far they have invented the See n’ Say. ^[1] Baby steps, I guess.

Dr. Edgar Barnes, head of Operation Polyglot, has come in early to see if anyone was tampering with the machines.  He finds that someone has soldered some wires to a terminal.  Worse, he realizes it will take a year of programming to make the machine understand the word “solder” does not rhyme with colder.  He also notices the debris leftover from some computer punch-cards.

He takes the bits of paper to Security Chief Phil Coulson — wait, what?  They go back to the lab.  Barnes — is his nickname Bucky by any chance? — shows him the typewriter where words are input, and the other typewriter where they come out in “French, German, Spanish, Russian and Chinese” although I am dubious of a 1956 Smith Corona having a 废话 key. ^[2]

He says no one could have punched those cards except his 3 subordinates.  But they passed the rigorous 1956 security screening by being US citizens over 21, white, male, and owning a hat.  Coulson goes undercover as a member of the foundation supporting their work, and takes the gang out to dinner.  They discuss what they do in their off hours.  Sadly, Dr. Lopert’s wife “has been ill for some time” so he hangs out at the lab most of the time.  A government worker putting in those kind of hours sounds suspicious to our guys, so they go back to the lab and go through his desk.  They find letters written in several languages.  Luckily, they have just the machine to translate them.

After a couple of embarrassing letters to Russian mail-order bride magazines, they discover a letter from a German doctor stating his experience treating sub-acute bacterial endocarditis — hey, that’s what Mrs. Lopert suffers from!  So, Lopert has been using the machine to help his wife.  Coulson still thinks there might be something nefarious encoded in the letters, but he thought the same thing about his Alpha-Bits this morning.  After all, a man with a sick wife might be willing to sell secrets to the Russkis for cash or a coupon to upgrade his new mail-order wife from a dumpy 1950’s model to a swinging 1960’s Commie babe.  A search of Lopert’s home reveals a soldering iron and punch-cards.

I don’t know what this is, but it was a recommendation from dailymotion on this same page.

They catch Lopert in the lab that night tinkering with the computer.  He says he is using its logic to assess the best surgical treatment for his wife.  Touched by this, Coulson helps him and they work through the night.  The computer finally recommends a medical strategy, and even provides a contingency plan in case the procedure fails — insist on a Ukrainian girl.

The Loperts accept the computer’s decision and Mrs. L. has the operation.  In no time she is back in great health, and Lopert has lost his deposit from the magazine.  Even better, a grant has been approved for him to continue researching medical applications of the device.

Despite the always welcome presence of the gnome-like Whit Bissell, one of the series bigger slogs.

Other Stuff:

• [1]  Why is the turkey quacking like a duck?  Maybe this technology is trickier than I thought.
• [UPDATE] Starting the video a bit earlier, I see the pointer started on the duck.  I am not going erase the observation, though, because it was literally the most entertainment I got from the episode.  And in fairness — to me — it is a pretty poor design.  You point at the animal you want to hear, then pull the string.  The pointer spins while the noise plays.  There is nothing to contemporaneously associate the sound to the original selection.
• [2]  A little off-point here, but what do Chinese people eat for breakfast?  They have lunch and dinner covered, but where are the Chinese joints open at 6 am for breakfast?