Word: users
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Western governments still bar the sale of large computers to the Soviets. Reason: the principal user of computer technology in the Soviet Union is the military. To get around the trade restrictions, the Soviets have relied on espionage. Through bribery and theft, clandestine armies of agents have obtained thousands of classified documents giving technical specifications for Western computers. Whenever possible, the Soviets have gone after the machines themselves. A favorite Soviet tactic is to set up bogus companies in Western Europe to buy computers and then smuggle them to Moscow. In recent years, the U.S. Government has seized several powerful...
Barbara Gerk, who writes a regular column on user groups for the weekly magazine InfoWorld, believes that organizations like FOG will be around for years. When a computer has been orphaned, she says, "sometimes there's nowhere else to turn...
...grim kind of camaraderie is evident among owners of orphaned computers. Those who cannot afford to scrap their machines or donate them to schools as tax deductions often turn to fellow users for comfort and support. As a result, hundreds of orphan-user groups have sprung up across the U.S., holding meetings in company cafeterias, community centers, classrooms and dens. Members swap tips on software, sources for ever scarcer accessories, and techniques for getting the most out of their discontinued machines...
...orphan computers end up in the closet because people don't know what to do with them," says Susan Mahoney, who directs a Timex Sinclair User Group out of her home in Waterbury, Conn. Her 600-member organization, one of 100 such U.S. chapters devoted to Timex alone, helps bring those computers back out of the closet. The Timex groups exchange newsletters, sponsor joint meetings and cooperate in finding spare parts...
...varying electrical current that can be represented by a wave with a characteristic set of peaks and troughs. This wave form (see diagram) is converted into a template, a pattern of zeros and ones that the computer can digest and store. By prerecording a number of key words, a user can build up a library of digital templates, each corresponding to a particular computer instruction. Then, whenever he utters a command, the computer compares the incoming pattern with the templates stored in its memory. When it finds a pattern that matches its master's voice, the machine executes the proper...