Computing Systems, from 300,000 BC to 2029 

Computing machines have transformed the human condition and psyche more than any technology over the past half century, empowering billions of people beyond what even most despotic emperor could imagine just a few decades ago. But the computing systems we use today are built with 1960s-era technologies and suffer from engineering decisions made under constraints very different from those we face today. In this talk, I’ll take a whirlwind tour through some episodes in computing’s past that explain how we got where we are today, argue that only a fool would attempt to make predictions about the future, and make my own reckless pronouncements about what is (or should be) to come.