ABSTRACT
The introduction of reliable low-cost electronic computers into the economy was the most revolutionary technical innovation of the twentieth century. While it is true that the older mechanical and electromechanical calculators and other devices could already perform some of the functions of modern computers before and during the Second World War, it was the electronic computer which totally transformed both the range of potential applications and their cost. Table 7.1 illustrates the dramatic increase in capacity and reduction in costs of computing which occurred in the 1950s and early 1960s, from the early valve (tube) computers to those using semiconductor technology and integrated circuits. Since that time the microprocessor revolution of the 1970s and 1980s has further increased the number of components per cubic cm and reduced their cost by at least two more orders of magnitude, so that the computers of the 1950s now appear incredibly expensive and cumbersome.
