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On-lme Computer Net-ya&jtsa: In 1989-91 the Eastern European and Soviet republics rejected communist control by the Warsaw jj Pact and Soviet I Union, opting to a greater or lesser extent, for Western democracy.
The Internet global ll> £ inT on-lme computer net-yA&JtSA work (1984) is, arguably and potentially, the worlds greatest modern democratic institution: anyone may transmit or receive information via e-mail or the World Wide Web.
Potential applications of the computer made possible by microelectronics include a small computer in every home or a pocket computer terminal that can be connected to a powerful central computer via the telephone. Such devices may be used to solve our numerical problems (e.g., income tax, or our bank balance) or as a creative tool to relate our knowledge and experiences to our future actions.
And what of the computer? Olof Johannesson's 1966 novel, The Tale of the Big Computer (which first appeared in an American edition in 1968), offers a history of the development of computers as told by an advanced computer of the future. In an unemotional, utterly convincing essay, it describes the gradual obsolescence and disappearance of its creator, man.
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