Black Magic in a box

What struck me when researching about the early origins of computers was how skeptical they were about it, how they were almost expected it to simple fail or destroy anything around it. Not to say that they believed in magic, but that's what the common person must have thought was driving the first computer to work.
As it turns out, the machine that might have been responsible for the computer's development is the calculator. I know that others will say otherwise, but i see it as a separate machine to the computer, it is also a machine that can operate with minimal human influence.