Two of the greatest technologies of our age are telecommunications and computer engineering. Telecommunications is concerned with moving information from one point to another point or from one point to many other points. I think it is no exaggeration to say that the telecommunications industry is largely taken for granted by the vast majority of people. If you were to ask the average person what the greatest technological feat of 1969 was, they would probably reply ‘The first manned landing on the moon’. A much more magnificent achievement was the ability of millions of people half a million kilometres away to watch what was taking place on the moon in their own homes. However, if most people are not aware of the great developments in the telecommunications industry, they will not have missed the microprocessor revolution. In the last few years powerful computers have become even more powerful and minicomputers and microprocessors have spread to industry, education, research, and the home.

(Extraído de: The Principles of Computer Hardware, Alan Clements,

International Student Edition, 2nd, 1991)