Jacquard Automatic Loom, ca. 1840 After Joseph Marie Jacquard (1752-1834), a silk weaver in Lyon, France, the Jacquard loom is considered to be one of the first programmable machine tools, an important step in the development of computing technology. Smithsonian Museum, Washington, D.C.

Eniac Electronic Computer, December 1945. Dimensions: 27 metric tons, 167.23 square meters of floor space, 17,000 vacuum tubes, 70,000 resistors, 10,000 capacitors, 6,000 manual switches, no memory storage capacity. Cost in 1945 dollars: $500,000. National Museum of American History Collection, Smithsonian Museum, Washington, D.C.

Apple iMac G3 Computer 1997 Dimensions: 18 kilogram weight, 1 square meter of floor space, no vacuum tubes, 32 megabytes of random access memory, high resolution color monitor, 2 gigabyte hard drive, 56k internal modem, 233 megahertz speed, 24x cd-rom drive, internet and basic applications software included. Cost in 1999 dollars: $1,000