Indeed, in some schools, students are faced with long periods of interactive, consumer computer use such as interactive mathematical exercises. (elearnmag.acm.org)
It hasn't been worth mining bitcoin using standard consumer computer hardware for years because of the kind of processing power involved; the overwhelming majority of ordinary members of public pools will have bought hardware from companies like KnCMiner. (businessinsider.com)
Most of it's features could be done with a webcam or decent proprietary camera, although since most consumer computer cameras didn't have as many features or resolution it probably wouldn't have been able to do as much through any written software. (n4g.com)