A discussion about translation services, translators, and translation software

This post is the initial entry in the category of Translation Software.  Let's pretend that I'm the Rip Van Winkle of translation and that I just woke up from a 25-year nap.  When I went to sleep, translation was done by clever people with dictionaries.  Now, translation is done by clever people with dictionaries and computers!  And the clever people get help from their computers using stuff called software for computer-assisted translation (CAT) or machine-assisted translation (MAT).   I'm a blank slate.  Brief me.