ABSTRACT
Only a hundred years ago, the very idea that a machine could be built to execute calculations was treated with ridicule and scorn. Charles Babbage - whose designs for the Analytical Engine and the Difference Engine were hopelessly ahead of their time - died in obscurity after a life of financial
16 struggle. Once the technology became available, progress in calculating machines was rapid and the computer" - as it came to be known - went from strength to strength as vacuum tubes gave way to transistors, only to be displaced in their turn by the Ubiquitous silicon chip". With fifth generation computers on the way before many people have come to terms with the capabilities of the first generation, the sheer pace and profundity of a truly revolutionary development is difficult to grasp or convey. Exponential increases are always harder to accommodate than linear ones. An analogy with motor cars may help, for the developed world is already familiar with the radical changes which motorized transport has wrought in the environment, the economy, town planning, methods of communication and even on patterns of life and work. But if the internal combustion engine had developed as rapidly as the central processing unit of the modern computer since 1945, a Rolls Royce would now have 45,000 brake horse power, cost £2 to buy, do three million miles to the gallon, and six could be parked on this full stop.
