[ericssmith]

"And, thanks to Konrad Zuse, computers and computer networks are what we have."

Holy smokes, what an inaccurate statement. Arguably one of the obstacles to progress in technology is due the persistence of the fundamental computer design that has been employed since "Baby" ran its first program just before lunch on June 21, 1948, including an approach to fast random memory accesses. This approach was novel, based on CRTs used in radar. Most everything else -- design-wise -- was from the Moore School Lectures of 1946. And the really inspirational part of those was from the work on the ENIAC.

The missing piece that needs to be more generally appreciated is how the early work on practical, general-purpose computers was quietly done in England while the Americans were squabbling over who was first.