One Thing at a Time: 19th-Century Multitasking Advice | Shannon Selin

Even the fastest computer in the world only does one thing at a time. (For my computer expert friends, I am using the processor as my definition of a computer. A computer containing two processors is but a multi-computer.) When a computer "multi-tasks", it performs tasks in sequence like a card dealer passes cards one-at-a-time in rotation until all players have complete hands. When we multitask, we are like that card dealer. I would argue that even President James Garfield who could write in Greek and Latin, one with the right hand and the other with the left simultaneously, was processing the two languages like that card dealer.