Machine learning is a set of techniques developed to attack modeling problems that traditional algorithms couldn't solve. So if the algorithm was developed and used before computers it definitely isn't machine learning. Everything done in this article was known and used before computers existed hence not machine learning.
Doing automatically controlled systems was still possible before computers just that it required a bit more creative use of analog components.
Doing automatically controlled systems was still possible before computers just that it required a bit more creative use of analog components.