The "thinking machine, "(ordinateur"? -- French for "that which puts in order" -- I once heard.
Its primary stage of developement would have been (someone might correct me) during the 1940s; used by large, large organizations by the 1960s; increasingly available to advanced students, hobbyists, , researchers... by the 1980s. The thinking machine could be said to have entered the third quarter of the 20th Century as an oddity for the intellectual elite, and emerged from that quarter as a promising contender. Coming into the life of the First World (West).
It has expanded communication in a way hardly to have been fortold by science ' :) .' fiction writers. It has become a tool for office and laboratory. For the latter case, I probably have little idea.
It has been a tool in the hands of large corporations and gove/rnmental surveiy-illance a-gencies. As the corp's sell their wares and profyl their personnel.
Considerable work has been done by the EFF, for the protection of the person from intimidation by large powers. I shall put it like that. The Electric Freedom Foundation is doing much to protect privacy of Internet users; but more -- I am suggesting its place in resisting Big Br=other in a trend(?) toward an all-knowing po-lice/state.
