Question

bellwether Three characteristics of McCarthy’s 1961 centennial lecture became significant and shaped the public discourse about computing for the next decade: it happened at MIT (which was a bellwether of American computing), it endorsed time-sharing, and it offered the possibility of computing as a public good with the utility model.

Accepted Answer

n. An indicator or predictor of a coming change. A People's History of Computing in the United States, Joy Lisi Rankin

Word	bellwether
Definition	n. An indicator or predictor of a coming change.
Sentence	Three characteristics of McCarthy’s 1961 centennial lecture became significant and shaped the public discourse about computing for the next decade: it happened at MIT (which was a bellwether of American computing), it endorsed time-sharing, and it offered the possibility of computing as a public good with the utility model.
Source	A People's History of Computing in the United States, Joy Lisi Rankin

Computing Bellwether Public N Indicator Predictor Coming Change