Transistors were invented at just the right time for information technology. Offering high reliability and low power consumption, they were immediately attractive to telecommunication engineers and computer designers, and their use surged ahead when it became possible to manufacture thousands of transistor circuits on one small wafer of silicon. Intense competition between suppliers forced them into continuous improvement and, because costs fell sharply with mass production, competition led also to the creation of surplus manufacturing capacity. Producers scrambled to find new markets to absorb their rising output, and few corners of life in Western countries have been left untouched by the silicon chip.

Technological developments of every kind have been so rapid in this century that we have had to accept more changes within our lifetimes than once were spread over many generations. Information technology has helped to force the pace of change in industry, commerce, government and everyday living; but nowhere is development faster than in information technology (IT) itself. Genetic engineering, nuclear energy, and IT have been lumped together as extreme examples of our obsession with ‘high technology’. Critics have been moved to speculate whether changes are now coming upon us too rapidly to be accommodated without unacceptable amounts of human and social stress.

Many forecasts of life under IT strive to make our flesh creep at the prospect of a bleak future among the robots in a police state.