When the first electronic computers emerged from university and military laboratories in
the late 1940s and early 1950s, visionaries proclaimed them the harbingers of a second industrial
revolution that would transform business, government and industry. But few laymen, even if they
were aware of the machines, could see the connection. Experts too, were sceptical. Not only
were computers huge, expensive, one-of-a-kind devices designed for performing abstruse
scientific and military calculations, such as cracking codes and calculations missile trajectories,
they were also extremely diff…
