Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) results from the connectivity provided by modern computers via local area networks (LANs) or the Internet, that allows multiple users to work together. In the early days of computing during the 1950s and 1960s, mainframe computers executed business programs. They were given a stack of punched cards, processed for a while, and eventually printed out an answer on long strips of folded green computer paper. End users never even saw these machines. Only "operators" had access to the input and output devices. End users would usually hand a job request through a small window in the "computer center" to an operator, returning in a day or two to pick up the answer.

Then came the personal computer, or PC, which essentially did the same thing, except the computer center and the operators were no longer required. As a "personal...