ABSTRACT
As we approach the end of the twentieth century we see the influence of computers all around us. In the 1970s computers worked behind the scenes to balance books, write paychecks, prepare weather reports, and do any number of tasks whose characteristics usually included odious repetitive operations. In the 1980s there was a change. Computers came out of the basement. The bank’s computer began to deal with the customer first hand, without the human intervention of bank employees. On most desks was a personal computer that processed both words and data, and could be connected with others through telephone networks, which themselves were run by computers. Tasks that computers now do are starting to get more complex. Machine intelligence, Inference engines, and Expert Systems are terms that are increasingly in vogue.
