BBC Computer Literacy Project

The space race of the 1960s developed a new breed of lightweight computers to control spacecraft. A major by-product was the silicon chip. If it weren't for the Apollo project, the personal computer would still be a fantasy of the future.

The magnificent Boston Symphony Organ is, in fact, two automatic player organs in concert. They were rescued, waterlogged, from two private residences, and restored by Boston University.

On a windy beach near South Humberside, scientists from the Sea Mammal Research Unit try to catch a grey seal in their nets. The idea is to attach a radio transmitter to its back and track the seal's behaviour with a satellite overhead.

More and more shops are being fitted with electronic tills. These tills can send their daily sales information down a telephone line to a main computer. But what happens to the information then?

The hobby computers of yesterday have changed the face of computing today. It has become accessible to ordinary people enabling them to develop new ideas in business and industry.

In a London squat, two musicians built themselves a drum kit from cheap and freely available parts, including silicon chips. They realised they had a winner on their hands, and joined up with a marketing company to sell large numbers to eager buyers. But attempts to build on this success have not gone so smoothly.

Are you a modern clean liver, or a guilty eater? Advertising executives pour over their computer printouts trying to find the sort of person who will buy their breakfast cereal. Rather than promote the product to all and sundry, they are hoping to appeal to a niche market who will appreciate quality, and pay extra for it.

Lloyds of London will insure virtually anything. In 1987 a new computer system was introduced, but underwriters had to be persuaded that this was their way forward.

When all else fails, a computer-controlled brain can at least be made to fail safe, which means in an emergency it simply stops. But it is more difficult to apply this principle to a computer-controlled plane.

Peter de Savary's yacht designers turned to computers to help build an America's Cup challenger in a matter of months. Computers can often speed up design work, but do they improve the quality of the end product?