If my experience is any guide, the most impressive quality of computers is not technological in nature. It is their ability to forgive. In the early 1980s, attached to my fountain pen and manual typewriter, I dismissed computers as a fad whose time would soon pass. Yet Luddite instincts still lurked in my soul. I promptly subscribed to an online service, and much of my leisure time is now spent rummaging around in cyberland.
Forgiveness comes naturally to it.
My odyssey with computers is a parable for our times. Seen only rarely in offices a decade ago, the computer is now omnipresent in the work world and is increasingly found in private homes as well. As for computer networks, the world's largest online service, America Online, has five million members, making it larger than the largest Canadian city. A revolution is clearly underway, but its significance is not yet clear. After all, virtually every innovation of the industrial age has been described in hyperbolic terms.