honton (10/27/82)
WHAT GOOD ARE HOME COMPUTERS? by Cary Lu (Reprinted without anybody's permission or encouragement from Science82 July/August 1982) The home computer, marvel of the electronic age, is now at the threshold, we are told, of all our homes. Buy one of these wonderful gadgets and it will automate your home and make your life easier. Somehow lost in the enthusiasm is one simple question: Of what practical use are home computers? The answer is that they aren't really good for much of anything. The home computer is a triumph of technology over practicality. But wait, the enthusiasts cry. Computers can do anything - balance your checkbook, do your taxes, keep your recipe files. There is no question that computers are essential for many business or scientific uses. If you bring your work home, you may find a home computer valuable. I have one in my home, and I use it for research and for word processing. In fact, I am writing this article on my computer. If you need to do these things at home, I recommend getting one. I thought I would find other uses for my machine. But I haven't thought of anything. What about the checkbooks and taxes and recipe files? Many computer freaks do use their machines for these tasks, but the only thing they have to show for their effort is wasted time. Consider the problems, remembering that a computer needs a specific set of instructions, a program, for every use. Balancing your checkbook: When you do this, you compare your records with the bank statement, adding and subtracting each deposit and check. That's how you do it with a $7 calculator. With a $1000 computer, you do the same thing. You have to hit the same keys and decide whether to add or subtract. And that's after you've taken the hours to program the gadget. Income taxes: If you don't find the short form easy enough with paper and pencil, you won't be able to handle a computer. Even with the long form, computers won't really help. If you write a program for the long form, it will take many hours, even days. Then you have to check the program by doing your taxes by hand. If you buy a program, it can be expensive. But no program for taxes is guaranteed to be correct. To verify it, you still have to do your taxes by hand. Yes, say the computer freaks, you must do all that checking the first time, but in later years, it will be simple. No way. Tax laws change every year; you must revise the program every year and recheck it. Recipes: Yes, you can put recipes into a computer and call them up at will. You can do the same thing with a file box. The difference is that the file box is cheaper, smaller, quicker, and easier. And it can stay in the kitchen. Still another ballyhooed feature of home computers is their communications abilities. One form is to receive your newspaper or other printed matter on your home system. I can call up a service called MicroNET on the telephone, hook it up to my computer, and receive a variety of newspapers. My local newspaper, for example, prints about 130,000 words every day. Using MicroNET it would take about 7 hours to receive them, at a cost of $35 - just for one day's newspaper. The photographs, comics, and ads are missing. And you can't take it to the bathroom with you. One final use is education. This makes some sense. Children may pay more attention, at least for the short run, to a video screen than to a book. But, unfortunately, the education programs available today aren't very good. Don't misunderstand me. I like computers. I enjoy working with them. It's just that they make sense only for people who really need them. Ask the average home computer owner what they use it for. The answer will be the examples described here or, if the owner is honest, games.
pcmcgeer (10/29/82)
You know, I was in Toronto the other day, having dinner with my sister (pursuing a Master's in Philosophy) and my brother-in-law (second year law). Both of these artsies were thrilled at the prospect of having a home computer attached to a USENET-like network - more for the mail and news features than anything else. Pournelle wrote that he couldn't understand how he had survived without a PC, and I suspect that our friends at Drexel and CMU will feel the same way in two or three years. Rick.