LAST EDITED ON May-13-13 AT 09:05 PM (EDT)
 
>I've never seen any of the Hartnell era, but I'm sure I remember
>seeing that happen in one of the films - which I saw in the cinema
>when it first came out. Presumably the controls were a good bit more
>primitive than what we saw in "Dalek" when the casing was popped.

The Cushing films bear no continuity or mythology relationships to the TV series, FYI.

It's been some time since I found that Hartnell story arc on Netflix (and I'm not entirely sure that my understanding of it isn't warped in some way), but, IIRC, the principle weakness of the Daleks in that serial was that they had no internal power source, and were limited to their city because of it.

By their second appearance, of course, they'd gotten away from that, AFAIK. (My direct exposure to pre-revival Who is limited.)

"Mathematics brought rigor to economics. Unfortunately, it also brought mortis."
- Kenneth Boulding