First, instead of computer, I d say computer and communication, because unless a computer is linked to something, it really doesn t do much.

James Burke, author, science historian and producer of such insightful television documentaries on technological history as Connections, Connections 2, and The Day the Universe Changed.

The above quote from James Burke is particularly apt, serving to evoke the most primitive underlying idea of computer telephony that computation and communications can both be brought into a close, synergistic relationship. Burke s quote also reflects in microcosm his whole philosophy that the history of science and technology is a web of disparate, though linked events (he used the term web nearly 15 years before the World Wide Web appeared). It s across the length and breadth of this web where unlikely causal chains of serendipitous discoveries and chance occurrences form and ultimately lead to modern inventions such as the ball point pen, the combustion engine, and even the computer itself.

Indeed, Burke s unique tangled, yet slap-dash, almost picaresque version of history reminds me of the convoluted path that led me to the computer telephony industry in general and the magazine Computer Telephony in particular.

If I were a James Burke attempting to tell this wildly improbable tale, I d begin by making the deliberately provocative statement that it was really the invention of word processing that was responsible for my career in computer telephony, the success of CT magazine, and the production of the encyclopedia you...