The ability to think and reason is what makes us human, setting us apart from the rest of nature. People communicate in intricate ways about various complex subjects and at the centre of it all there is a thinking machine, the computer. With it our thoughts can be recorded and what once seemed possible now seems common place. Today computers are capable of amazing tasks that would boggle even the greatest of minds.

The story of the computer and it’s evolution entails squandered chances, fortunate accidents, frequent missteps, fantastic insights and unprecedented genius, it is a story of a machine that helped America and the Allies win World War II, create weapons of mass destruction and sent us into space.