1970 to 1979: Computers and Software Begin Creating Wealth - The Technical and Social History of Software Engineering - page 158

Gaming and Entertainment Software
The computer game industry is one of the most striking new kinds of businesses
in all history. The idea of millions of humans interacting in virtual environments
was not even a science-fiction dream until these games started to appear in real
life. Computers and software have also transformed filmmaking and have led to
amazingly realistic special effects and almost photographic realism of images that
are purely computer generated. Music composition and music performances have
also been impacted by computers and software. Indeed, almost every teenager has
access to thousands of downloaded songs at any time.
Some specific game and entertainment software include replicas of board
games such as chess and backgammon; hundreds of card games; single-player
games such as the classic Doom ; and, more recently, massively multiplayer online
role-playing games (MMORPGs).
Computerized animation is now the dominant tool for cartoons and full-length
films. Computerized music services such as Pandora use sophisticated algorithms
to classify composers and musical types; composers and performers can now write
music and record it using embedded devices and computers. Music synthesizers
are older than computers, but all of the modern ones use embedded chips and soft-
ware.
Manufacturing Software
For hundreds of years, assembly lines and machine tools were controlled manually
by skilled operators. During the 1970s, computers began to be applied to assembly
lines and repetitive operations. Eventually, this would lead to fully robotic manu-
facturing with very few humans involved in the process at all. Not only hardware
manufacturing but also chemical, pharmaceutical, and oil manufacturing would
become more and more automated.
Today, many companies practice just-in-time manufacturing, and the whole se-
quence from ordering raw materials through final assembly is controlled by com-
puters. Robotic manufacturing has cut down on shop-floor labor in the automotive
and aerospace sectors, as well as in the area of smart appliances and smartphones.