Computers in everything: from the pushbutton factory to the Y2K bug

Most technologies stay the same, even when their appearances change radically. Not so with computers. Despite the fact that we refuse to give them a better name, computers are rarely used for mathematical computing. The electronic circuits of present-day computers still perform the same binary arithmetic functions as their predecessors, but the original uses for computers have been completely forgotten. The author discusses the evolution of the digital computer. The introduction of the microprocessor indicated the beginnings of real changes in the definition of the word 'computer'. Yet as the clock prepares to strike midnight on the eve of the new millennium, there are predictions of a future that differs sharply from the technological utopias projected in 1900.