In March 1997, the Association for Computing Machinery celebrated the 50th anniversary of the electronic computer. To understand what an extraordinary 50 years the computer has had, one need only look around - probably no farther than one's desk. Computers are everywhere: in our cars, our homes, our supermarkets, at the phone company office, and at the local hospital - but, as the contributors to this volume make clear, the scientific, social and economic impact of computers is only beginning to be felt. These 16 invited essays on the future of computing take on a great variety of topics, with opinions from such experts as Gordon Bell, Sherry Turkle, Edsger W. Dijkstra, Paul Abraham, Donald Norman, Franz Alt and David Gelernter.