Resumen
The article focuses on the need to look to the past to envision the future of information technology (IT). A key distinguishing characteristic of human beings have been use of tools, including extensive use of communications technologies. The IT industry moved slowly until the invention of electronics made complex and speedy systems practical. This has been followed by a crescendo of improvements that are helping people realize the potential of computation, electronic control, and electromagnetic communication. Current tools and interfaces are surely primitive compared to where the technology will end up. However, one feels that some early wheels, windows, and written scrolls, basic tools and ideas that help define and extend what it means to be human. People use IT because of what it can do for them, not for its inherent qualities. Benefit of IT to society is that today's people can use it to fulfill today's needs. IT is intriguing in that it is made up of physical devices, like many other engineering fields, yet is just as much built of software, which is similar to language and social organization. Now a new generation is emerging that will build upon that base to fully integrate what IT can do for society.