Abstract
The appearance of the inexpensive personal computer is in many ways like the period after the printing press was invented. People recognized that printing technology would make record keeping for business and government easier and information more widely available. However, the main impact on daily life became evident decades later when the majority became literate enough to use reading and writing for personal satisfaction and gain.
Today, although thousands of people are discovering the rewards of computer literacy, “in the public mind computer literacy still belongs to that small priesthood who painfully acquire their skills in the service of large cloistered machines, unapproachable by ordinary laymen,” say A. Luehrmann and H. Peckman in their book Apple Pascal. In fact, anyone can learn to use a computer. For many families the computer has become an integral part of their life styles.
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