I am not sure the authors did a careful study of the computing history. Computing as a way of human activity has always been evolving in the direction that the

I am not sure the authors did a careful study of the computing history. Computing as a way of human activity has always been evolving in the direction that the core platform technology moves up in the abstraction stack: * We first invented the abstraction concepts with close tie to physical items. I.e., people are counting their possessions in the literal mass. Or very basic abstract concept: using ropes for numbering. As a form of computing, it can only record limited information, and perform very little computing (addition subtraction). * Then fully fledged abstract concepts in human languages, which enables human mind as the major computing platform, plus various physical aids (papers, pens, etc.) * Then there are actual machines that perform certain computation with very limited scope. Mechanical computer etc. * Till the modern era we started the electronic computing. Then we have a primary device that can take over the computing task with minimal human involvement. Even just inside this era, the progressing has a long history that does not simply reduce to "general computing". The modern day computing platform is not CPU. It's the web. With CPU you cannot do much useful thing. It's with github, linux, and etc. that one can start quickly perform computing. This platform itself does not lend CPU much credits of being more important than any other components. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arithmetic_rope https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arithmetic_rope [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_computing_hardware#Ancient_and_medieval https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_computing_hardware#...