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 missi ....