The evolution of modern computers began more than 50 years ago and has been driven to a large extend by rapid advances in electronic technology during that period. The first computers ran one application (user) at a time. Without the benefit of operating systems or compilers, the application programmers were responsible for managing all aspects of the hardware. The introduction of compilers allowed programmers to express algorithms in abstract terms without being concerned with the bit level details of their implementation. Time sharing operating systems took computing systems one step...