The transistor announced by Bell Telephone Laboratories will permit miniaturization of electronic devices such as computers, radios, and television sets and lead to the development of guided missiles. The figure will more than double in the next 4 years and debate will rage as to whether computers wipe out jobs or create new ones. Gates, who wrote his first computer program at 13 and scored a perfect 800 on his math S.A.T., has dropped out of Harvard to start what will be the biggest seller of computer software and will make Gates a billionaire before he is 30. Computers are less prone to failure. Computers are smaller.
Computers are faster.
Computers use less electricity. Mass production makes computers less expensive. Timesharing allows users at different terminals to work with the same mainframe at the same time. The most powerful mainframes are called supercomputers. Minicomputers are smaller than mainframes, but larger than personal computes.