As materials science allowed the power of steam to be harnessed, there were all manner of uses found. Some were silly, some were successful, while the world experimented with what wonders could be worked with this new, portable, relatively cheap energy. Mankind was no longer had to have muscle in the harness.

It seems to me that we have been in the same position with computers. As material science has allowed microprocessors to be cheap and efficient, we are just learning what to do with all that power.

Of course there will be mistakes, and as the article pointed out something was learned from all.

Helped a friend way back when with his Master's thesis in Electrical Engineering. He had a way to make transistors. It didn't work well. He wrote it up and sold it to a journal for $400, which was a months pay for a BS in EE. (I took the pictures. He got about 1 our of 4 to work, took lots of material, crummy process.)

Arf