Computer
Before the computer era there were machines that could do the same thing over and over again, like a music box. But some people wanted to be able to tell their machine to do different things. For example, they wanted to tell the music box to play different music every time. This part of computer history is called the "history of programmable machines" which in simple words means "the history of machines that I can order to do different things if I know how to speak their language."