This amusing programme demonstrates that you don't need to be familiar with exceedingly complicated jargon to understand key concepts in data communication

This amusing studio-based programme from 1978 uses analogy and humour to explain what are otherwise complicated and jargon-laden concepts in data communication. We begin with three actors. two men and a woman, all in beach wear, sitting in deck-chairs on a desert island set, with Hawaiian music playing in the background. A storm erupts and the cast leave the scene. Another actor, playing the part of the 'Boffin' arrives in his inflatable dinghy. Dressed in a laboratory coat he sits in the vacant deck-chair and finds a Kentucky Fried Chicken box, re-labelled to say Kentucky Fried Castaway, and some bones. Fearing that he's landed on an island full of cannibals he reacts when the woman arrives back on the scene. The two other men start examining the contents of the Boffin's dinghy which makes him irate. He starts to explain what the items are but uses complex language that bores the islanders because they cannot understand his over-complicated language. A dialogue begins where the woman finds linguistic parallels that explain the Boffin's jargon. Actions like jungle drums, to explain signal transmission and reception and coconuts, used to demonstrate bandwidth function, act as analogies and bring clarity to the concepts the Boffin is trying to explain. In this way the concepts of data, encoding and decoding, bandwidth, protocols, simplex, half-duplex and full duplex transmission are explained. These are then summarised using a simple diagram. The programme ends with the woman sending out a message on a walkie-talkie which announces the imminent arrival of a large group of 'Club 18-30' holiday-makers. The 'islanders' are in fact employees of a tour organisation. The final shot shows the Boffin being pelted with empty beer cans while he persists in claiming that all his concepts have to be over-complicated.