> when a technology becomes convenient enough so we don't have to think about it while it fulfills it's purpose,
Is a tragically limited view of what computers are.
Programmable computers are fundamentally different from steam engines. A steam engine will never be anything except a steam engine. Most of the manufactured objects we encounter in everyday life are similar: single- (or occasionally multi-) purpose goods that do what they were designed to do.
A general-purpose computer is not like this. It can be made to serve virtually infinite purposes. It can be made to do things the manufacturers never imagined anyone doing, and things the manufacturers wished it couldn't do.[0] Almost nothing else has that kind of raw potential for human expression. Perhaps a blank notepad and pen might be analogous.
On the contrary, the analogy is very good. The steam engine represents power. Power can be used for a limitless number of applications. The steam engine is the CPU. You input energy (pressure/electricity) and extract work (mechanical/computational).
I don't think it's the same. A steam engine is more like a wagon or a truck. The steam engine can power many things; a truck can haul many different sorts of goods, but they're still fundamentally single-purpose. The engine powers, the wagon hauls.
I guess you could say a computer computes, but that's using an overly broad term to deliberately elide the point.
Nope. A computer can only do what the apps installed on it let you do, unless you're an IT person.
The things is that you don't need to be an IT person to use applications, as it used to be. So fewer people learn IT skills just so they can play a game or layout a document.
I know very little about cars but drive one daily. I can see how other people don't bother learning about computers just so they can write up a report for their job or order stuff on Amazon.
I like your poetic description of general-purpose computers. But I'm wondering why you think less of general-purpose machinery.
The difference is scarcity and readily available tools to retarget the steam engine for a different workload. A steam engine requires tools made of matter to make it provide mechanical power to another system. In essence, a steam engine is just a power supply.
A general purpose computer, on the other hand, includes a power supply, and generally doesnt need tools that change matter to retarget it for another application; the tools needed to do so are made of information, and are thus readily available.
Granted: we as CS folks and business folks are choking off our own sources of talent by hiding the tools and keys needed to truly examine our systems, all in the name of "user-friendlines", but its still possible to use what is exposed to learn computing basics like how wifi works, or what a proxy server are.
To be frank, I think this distinction is precisely why I get frustrated at computing incompetence: a PC at home isn't locked down and has access to these tools. Anyone can learn -- even using a web browser and notepad to write JS.
In contrast, learning how an engine works requires mass-based tools that are big and expensive and require careful knowledge of how to not harm yourself when disassembling or working on the engine.
This distinction is massive, and yet we still use analogies to cars. Shops with tools are not plentiful and readily accessible to average people, the engines can't be examined from the inside out, coils and springs are dangerous physically. I can't just go looking to take a class, either: not all schools have shops!
> A computer can only do what the apps installed on it let you do, unless you're an IT person.
As recently as the early 2000s, ordinary users were comfortable searching out and installing new software. I remember Napster becoming absolutely massive, and it wasn't because the IT folks installed it for users.
Is a tragically limited view of what computers are.
Programmable computers are fundamentally different from steam engines. A steam engine will never be anything except a steam engine. Most of the manufactured objects we encounter in everyday life are similar: single- (or occasionally multi-) purpose goods that do what they were designed to do.
A general-purpose computer is not like this. It can be made to serve virtually infinite purposes. It can be made to do things the manufacturers never imagined anyone doing, and things the manufacturers wished it couldn't do.[0] Almost nothing else has that kind of raw potential for human expression. Perhaps a blank notepad and pen might be analogous.
[0] https://boingboing.net/2012/01/10/lockdown.html