> In fact, in Philadelphia where I lived at
> the time, IBM, Burroughs and Monroe all had
> showrooms in the city. I had hands-on
> experience on at least three dozen by 1970.
> Hundreds of universities had them. Eight
> Australian Universities alone had computers
> in 1962, 43 years ago. U of P where I worked
> got its first general purpose computer, a
> Univac I, in 1951 - 54 years ago. U of Penn,
> Penn State, Univ of CA, Western Reserve
> Univ, Univ of Illinois, MIT and Univ of
> Wisconsin all built their own in the 50s.

The problem (if there is one) is that most people think of a "computer" as that thing sitting on their desk. As you point out, computers have been around at least since the 50's. Playing Blackjack as a Business, with it's simulations run by Julian Braun on an IBM mainframe, was first published in 1969. (Look! Blackjack content!)

However, the average individual with no connections to a major university likely had no direct contact with these behemoths. For most people, the "computer age" began with the rise of the personal computer.

While dedicated hobbyists had been assembling crude kits since the mid-60's, these didn't really start to become popular until the introduction of the Altair 8800 (1974). The Commodore Vic 20 (1981) was the first PC to sell 1 million units, as well as the first to sell for under $300.

This was followed by the Commodore 64 in 1982, which, complete with a cassette tape storage device and a whopping 64K of RAM, was my first computer.