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Telecomputing. Visions of sugar plums and fiber optic cables swirled through the Happy Hacker's head. In reality, however, telecommunications isn't very complicated. It simply involves hooking your computer up to a telephone. Usually you buy a modem ($100 to $250) and plug one end into your computer and the other end into a telephone outlet...
John Sununu, 46, is not just another well-heeled computer buff. He is the Governor of New Hampshire, and the data he pores over so diligently represent the state's $1 billion in annual expenditures. Using the computer and modem in his office in Concord, he can punch in his name and secret password, log on to the state's IBM 4361 mainframe computer, and get a quick reading, in glowing green digits, of the state's financial health: room-and-meal tax returns ($30.3 million as of last November); business profits taxes ($28.4 million); out-of-town travel expenses...
Nevertheless, the wiring of America proceeds apace. Some local phone companies are testing systems that will divide standard voice telephone lines into three digital channels, allowing telephone customers to plug terminals directly into their wall sockets, without benefit of modem, and to program their phones like computers. Networking firms, such as 3Com, Sytek, Ungermann- Bass and Network Systems Corp., are stringing up mile after mile of high- speed coaxial and optical fiber cables and offering communications rates in excess of 275 million bits of information a second...
After two of the students involved failed their QRR computer test, they decided to play a "prank," Sugiura said. Using a modem on an Apple IIC computer, the eight hooked into the computer system, he said...
Across the country, more and more Americans are logging on to computer information and service networks and discovering an ever enlarging cornucopia at their fingertips. Today anybody with a computer, a modem and a deep line of credit can buy an airline ticket to Cleveland, rent a Hertz car at the airport, book a room at the Sheraton, buy a novel from Waldenbooks, check the closing prices on Wall Street and purchase 100 shares of IBM--without ever getting up from the computer...