Comment by colechristensen

They were scientific revolutions ripe for the right people at the right time. These people are uncommon but they're always around, there was nothing particularly special about that generation or those few that found themselves where they did. If the events of the world wars didn't collapse civilization to the degree of the late bronze age collapse, the fall of the western roman empire, the Maya collapse, etc. then computing machinery was pretty inevitable in the span of a few decades.

You can usually make the argument that any particular scientific or engineering revolution would have happened anyway with different people nor more than 25 years or so later, at least any advancement since the mid 19th century.