Word: disces
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Reatha Brown has been lobbying for a new carpet, but she is becoming resigned to the prospect that the family will acquire a new hard-disc drive instead. "The video-assette recorder," she sighs, pointing across the room, "that was my other carpet." Replies her husband, setting forth an argument that is likely to be replayed in millions of households in the years just ahead: "We make money with the computer, but all we can do with a new carpet is walk on it. Somebody once said there were five reasons to spend money: on necessities, on investments, on self...
...family's 2,800-acre pig farm near De Kalb, 111. Outside, the winter's first snowflakes have dusted the low-slung roofs of the six red-and-white barns and the brown fields specked with corn stubble. Inside the two-room office building, Johnson slips a disc into his computer and types "D" (for dial) and a telephone number. He is immediately connected to the Illinois farm bureau's newly computerized AgriVisor service. It not only gives him weather conditions to the west and the latest hog prices on the Chicago commodities exchange, but also offers advice. Should farmers...
...Dippity Do. An experienced programmer at Control Data before she decided to have children, she now settles in at the computer right after breakfast, sometimes holding the baby in a sling. She starts by reading her computer mail, then sets to work converting a PLATO grammar program to a disc that will be compatible with Texas Instruments machines. "Midmorning I have to start paying attention to the three-year-old, because he gets antsy," says Hardinger. "Then at 11:30 comes Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers, so that's when I usually get a whole lot done." When her husband...
Scoffers said that the box-shaped beast resembled a World War II field radio. But it had all the features of a higher-priced computer: a detachable keyboard, a screen (albeit only 5 in. diagonal), 64K of memory and two built-in disc drives to run and store programs. It also filled a need. Says Osborne: "I saw a truck-sized hole in the industry, and I plugged it." Even Jobs, often a target of Osborne's stings, professed admiration for his entrepreneurial talent...
...past, computer owners had to write their own software. Today thousands of prewritten programs are on the market, ranging from games to accountants' tools. Running these software packages, as opposed to writing them, is no more difficult than playing a record or a videotape. Just find the appropriate disc, put it in a disc drive and push a button. In a matter of seconds the computer is programmed and set to do the job at hand-from balancing the books to finding misspelled words to playing a video game...