Word: disces
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Various kinds of software now give instructions to computers. Systems software controls the parts of a computer, including the video screen, the central processing unit and the disc drives, and makes them work together. Though sold under obscure brand names like CP/M, MS-DOS and UNIX, systems software for personal computers can be highly profitable, and last year sales totaled $500 million...
Users of personal computers are more concerned with a different kind of software: applications programs, which keep the family budget, help with students' homework, play computer games or do financial planning. These programs usually come on a so-called floppy disc, a piece of plastic about the size of a 45-r.p.m. record. They can also be on magnetic tape or a silicon chip inside a cartridge. Sales of applications software for personal computers last year totaled $560 million...
...hardest things to comprehend about software, at least for consumers, is the price. While the cost of making a floppy disc and the packaging runs only about $4 to $7, the software sells for much more. A data management program like dBase II costs $700, while Micro/ Scan II, a stock-analysis program, can be as much as $12,500. Even a popular educational product like Bank Street Writer has an undis-counted price of $69.95, and a program to teach a preschooler the alphabet...
...high school student in Alpine, N.J., interviewed by TIME is typical. The 15-year-old sophomore owns an Apple He computer and augments his allowance of $10 a week by bootlegging software. He buys a game like Commodore's Omega Race for $29.95, copies it onto a blank disc that costs him about $3 and sells it to his buddies for $10. "It's really simple," says the boy. "Nothing's easier than copying software...
...year-old genius in Get Out Your Handkerchiefs; a budding stepdaughter in Beau-Pere) he creates sexual fables poised on the brink of moral anarchy. No such luck in My Best Friend's Girl (La Femme de Mon Pole), an "adult" triangle about a sad-sack disc jockey and a tall, dark and blandsome shop owner both in love with a woman Unworthy of Their Affections. Outfitted in Whore of Babylon red slips and pumps, Huppert is fetching - surprisingly so, considering she has no character to play, only an atti tude. As for Blier, his wry French spirit...