Moore's Law was already known about. Techno-optimists especially expected something even more dramatic. I have a cybernetics encyclopedia for childrens written

Moore's Law was already known about. Techno-optimists especially expected something even more dramatic. I have a cybernetics encyclopedia for childrens written in the 80's (or was it late 70's ?) that discusses neural networks in one chapter, and in another Moore's Law including some scifi projections of the expected computer power (IIRC fairly accurately) and new computer types like optical/photonic and organic computers (IIRC too optimistic, though they were careful to not give a precise timetable). For the 90's look up terms like "the global village" and also maybe Charles Stross' Accelerando for a differently optimistic viewpoint : http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/fiction/accelerando/accelerando-intro.html http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/fiction/accelera...