Computers

Computers are rarely the centre of a story in science fiction though a number of computers have been important parts of stories. Nothing can date a science fiction story worse than the computers and electronics based technologies used within them. Authors have learnt by and large not to be too descriptive about the computer technology used in their stories. It's very rare to find descriptions of great banks of tape storage these days and stories where special circuits had to be set up in order for the computer to give an answer disappeared in the 60s as ever higher programming awareness came into ever greater public knowledge. As the difficulties of developing A.I. has become more apparent self-aware computers have also lost their caché (sorry HAL!).

In some books, such as E.E. 'Doc' Smith's Lensmen books, computers are often mentioned. However, these are not generally the electronic calculating machines that carry the name these days, but men and (more usually) women who would perform the calculations using mechanical adding machines on small parts of the problem.

Computers are not generally considered to be able to move under their own power, being fixed in one place or part of a larger moving object.

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