One can then dial an electronic data base, which not only



provides all manner of information but also collects and



transmits messages: electronic mail.







The 1,450 data bases that now exist in the U.S. range from



general information services like the Source, a Reader's Digest



subsidiary in McLean, Va., which can provide stock prices,



airline schedules or movie reviews, to more specialized services



like the American Medical Association's AMA/NET, to real



esoterica like the Hughes Rotary Rig Report. Fees vary from $300



an hour to less than $10.







Just as the term personal computer can apply to both a home



machine and an office machine (and indeed blurs the distinction



between the two places) many of the first enthusiastic" title="a.热情的，热心的">enthusiastic users of



these devices have been people who do much of their work at home:



doctors, lawyers, small businessmen, writers, engineers. Such



people also have special needs for the networks of specialized



data.







Orthopedic Surgeon Jon Love, of Madisonville, Ky., connects



the Apple in his home to both the AMA/NET, which offers, among



other things, information on 1,500 different drugs, and Medline,



a compendium of all medical articles published in the U.S. "One



day I accessed the computer three times in twelve minutes," he



says. "I needed information on arthritis and cancer in the leg.



It saved me an hour and a half of reading time. I want it to pay



me back every time I sit down at it."







Charles Manly III practices law in Grinnell, Iowa (pop.



8,700) a town without a law library, so he pays $425 a month to



connect his CPT work processor to Westlaw, a legal data base in



St. Paul. Just now he needs precedents in an auto insurance



case. He dials the Westlaw telephone number, identifies himself



by code, then types: "Courts (Iowa) underinsurance." The



computer promptly tells him there is only one such Iowa case, and



it is 14 years old. Manly asks for a check on other Midwestern



states, and it gives him a long list of precedents in Michigan



and Minnesota. I'm not a chiphead," he says, "but if you don't



keep up with the new developments, even in a rural general



practice, you're not going to have the competitive edge."







The personal computer and its networks are even changing



that oldest of all home businesses, the family farm. Though only



about 3% of commercial farmers and ranchers now have computers,



that number is expected to rise to nearly 20% within the next



five years. One who has grasped the true faith is Bob Johnson,



who helps run his family's 2,800-acre pig farm near De Kalb, Ill.



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 continue to postpone the sale of their



newly harvested corn? "Remember," the computer counsels, "that



holding on for a dime or a nickel may not be worth the long-term



wait."







Johnson started out playing computer games on an Apple II,



but then "those got shoved in the file cabinet." He began



computerizing all his farm records, which was not easy. "We



could keep track of the hogs we sold in dollars, but we couldn't



keep track of them by pounds and numbers at the same time." He



started shopping around and finally acquired a $12,000



combination at a shop in Lafayette, Ind.: a microcomputer from



California Computer Systems, a video screen from Ampex, a Diablo



would printer and an array of agricultural programs.







Johnson's computer now knows the yields on 35 test plots of



corn, the breeding records of his 300 sows, how much feed his



hogs have eaten (2,787,260 lbs.) and at what cost ($166,047.73).



"This way, you can charge your hogs the cost of the feed when you



sell them and figure out if you're making any money," says



Johnson. "We never had this kind of information before. It



would have taken too long to calculate. But we knew we needed



it."







Just as the computer is changing the way work is done in



home offices, so it is revolutionizing the office. Routine tasks



like managing payrolls and checking inventories have long since



been turned over to computers, but now the typewriter is giving



way to the work processor, and every office thus becomes part of



a network. This change has barely begun: about 10% of the



typewriters in the 500 largest industrial corporations have so



far been replaced. But the economic imperatives are inescapable.



All told, office professionals could save about 15% of their time



if they used the technology now available, says a study by Booz,



Allen & Hamilton, and that technology is constantly improving.



In one survey of corporations, 55% said they were planning to



acquire the latest equipment. This technology involves not just



word processors but computerized electronic message systems that



could eventually make paper obsolete, and wall-size, two-way TV



teleconference screens that will obviate traveling to meetings.







The standard home computer is sold only to somebody who wants



one, but the same machine can seem menacing when it appears in an



office. Secretaries are often suspicious of new equipment,



particularly if it appears to threaten their jobs, and so are



executives. Some senior officials resist using a keyboard on the



ground that such work is demeaning. Two executives in a large



firm reportedly refuse to read any computer print-out until their



secretaries have retyped it into the form of a standard memo.



"The biggest problem is introducing computers into an office is



management itself," says Ted Stout of National Systems Inc., an



office design firm in Atlanta. "They don't understand it, and



they are scared to death of it."







But there is an opposite fear that drives anxious executives



toward the machines: the worry that younger and more



sophisticated rivals will push ahead of them. "All you have to



do," says Alexander Horniman, an industrial psychologist at the



University of Virginia's Darden School of Business, "is walk down



the hall and see people using the computer and imagine they have



access to all sorts of information you don't." Argues Harold



Todd, executive vice president at First Atlanta Bank: "Managers



who do not have the ability to use a terminal within three to



five years may become organizationally dysfunctional." That is to



say, useless.







If more and more offices do most of their work on computers,



and if a personal computer can be put in a living room, why



should anyone have to go to work in an office at all? The



question can bring a stab of hope to anybody who spends hours



every day on the San Diego Freeway or the Long Island Rail Road.



Nor is "telecommuting" as unrealistic as it sounds. Futurist



Jack Nilles of the University of Southern California has



estimated that many home computer would soon pay for itself from



savings in commuting expenses and in city office rentals.







Is the great megalopolis, the marketplace of information,



about to be doomed by the new technology? Another futurist,



Alvin Toffler, suggests at least a trend in that direction. In



his 1980 book, The Third Wave, he portrays a 21st century world



in which the computer revolution has canceled out many of the



fundamental changes wrought by the Industrial Revolution: the



centralization and standardization of work in the factory, the



office, the assembly line. These changes may seem eternal, but



they are less than two centuries old. Instead, Toffler imagines



a revived version of pre-industrial life in what he has named



"the electronic cottage," a utopian abode where all members of



the family work, learn and enjoy their leisure around the



electronic hearth, the computer. Says Vice President Louis H.



Mertes of the Continental Illinois Bank and Trust Co. of Chicago,



who is such a computer enthusiast that he allows no paper to be



seen in his office (though he does admit to keeping a few files



in the drawer of an end table): "We're talking when--not if--the



electronic cottage will emerge."







Continental Illinois has experimented with such electronic



cottages by providing half a dozen workers with word processors



so they could stay at home. Control Data tried a similar



experiment and ran into a problem: some of its 50 "alternate



site workers" felt isolated, deprived of their social life around



the water cooler. The company decided to ask them to the office



for lunch and meetings every week. "People are like ants, they're



communal creatures," say Dean Scheff, chairman and founder of CPT



Corp., a word-processing firm near Minneapolis. "They need to



interact to get the creative juices flowing. Very few of us are



hermits."







TIME's Yankelovich poll underlines the point. Some 73% of



the respondents believed that the computer revolution would



enable more people to work at home. But only 31% said they would



prefer to do so themselves. Most work no longer involves a



hayfield, a coal mine or a sweatshop, but a field for social



intercourse. Psychologist Abraham Maslow defined work as a



hierarchy of functions: it first provides food and shelter, the



basics, but then it offers security, friendship, "belongingness."



This is not just a matter of trading gossip in the corridors;



work itself, particularly in the information industries, requires



the stimulation of personal contact in the exchange of ideas:



sometimes organized conferences, sometimes simply what is called



"the schmooze factor." Says Sociologist Robert Schrank: "The



workplace performs the function of community."







But is this a basic logical" title="a.心理学(上)的">psychological reality or simply another



rut dug by the Industrial Revolution? Put another way, why do so



many people make friends at the office rather than among their



neighbors? Prophets of the electronic cottage predict that it



will once again enable people to find community where they once



did: in their communities. Continental Illinois Bank, for one,



has opened a suburban "satellite work station" that gets



employees out of the house but not all the way downtown. Ford,



Atlantic Richfield and Merrill Lynch have found that



teleconferencing can reach far more people for far less money



than traditional sales conferences.







Whatever the obstacles, telecommuting seems particularly



rich with promise for millions of women who feel tied to the home



because of young children. Sarah Sue Hardinger has a son, 3, and



a daughter three months old; the computer in her cream-colored



stucco house in South Minneapolis is surrounded by children's



books, laundry, a jar of 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.



"Mid-morning 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, a building contractor,



comes home and takes over the children, she returns to the



computer. "I use part of my house time for work, part of my work



time for the house," she says. "The baby has demand feeding, I



have demand working."







To the nation's 10 million physically handicapped,



telecommuting encourages new hopes of earning a livelihood. A



Chicago-area organization called Lift has taught computer



programming to 50 people with such devastating afflictions as



polio, cerebral palsy and spinal damage. Lift President Charles



Schmidt cites a 46-year-old man paralyzed by polio: "He never



held a job in his life until he entered our program three years



ago, and now he's a programmer for Walgreens."







Just as the vast powers of the personal computer can be



vastly multiplied by plugging it into an information network,



they can be extended in all directions by attaching the



mechanical brain to sensors, mechanical arms and other robotic



devices. Robots are already at work in a large variety of dull,



dirty or dangerous jobs: painting automobiles on assembly lines



and transporting containers of plutonium without being harmed by



radiation. Because a computerized robot is so easy to reprogram,



some experts foreseedrastic changes in the way manufacturing



work is done: toward customization, away from assembly- line



standards. When the citizen of tomorrow wants a new suit, one



futurist scenario suggests, his personal computer will take his



measurements and pass them on to a robot that will cut his choice



of cloth with a laser beam and provide him with a perfectly



tailor garment. In the home too, computer enthusiasts delight in



imagining machines performing the domestic chores. A little of



that fantasy is already reality. New York City Real Estate



Executive David Rose, for example, uses his Apple in business



deals, to catalogue his 4,000 books and to write fund-raising



letters to his Yale classmates. But he also uses it to wake him



in the morning with soft music, turn on the TV, adjust the lights



and make the coffee.







In medicine, the computer, which started by keeping records



and sending bills, now suggests diagnoses. CADUCEUS knows some



4,000 symptoms of more than 500 diseases: MYCIN specializes in



infectious diseases: PUFF measures lung functions. All can be



plugged into a master network called SUMEX-AIM, with headquarters



at Standard in the West and Rutgers in the East. This may all



sound like another step toward the disappearance of the friendly



neighborhood G.P., but while it is possible that a family doctor



would recognize 4,000 different symptoms. CADUCEUS is more likely



to see patterns in what patients report and can then suggest a



diagnosis. The process may sound dehumanized, but in one



hospital where the computer specializes in peptic ulcers, a



survey of patients showed that they found the machine "more



friendly, polite, relaxing and comprehensible" than the average



physician.







The microcomputer is achieving dramatic effects on the



ailing human body. These devices control the pacemakers



implanted in victims of heart disease: they pump carefully



measured quantities of insulin into the bodies of diabetics, they



test blood samples for hundreds of different allergies; they



translate sounds into vibrations that the deaf can "hear", they



stimulate deadened muscles with electric impulses that may



eventually enable the paralyzed to walk.







In all the technologists' images of the future, however,



there are elements of exaggeration and wishful thinking. Though



the speed of change is extraordinary, so is the vastness of the



landscape to be changed. New technologies have generally taken



at least 20 years to establish themselves, which implied that a



computer salesman's dream of a micro on every desk will not be



fulfilled in the very near future. If ever.







Certainly the personal computer is not without its flaws.



As most new buyers soon learn, it is not that easy for a novice



to use, particularly when the manuals contain instructions like



this specimen from Apple: "This character prevents script from



terminating the currently forming output line when it encounters



the script command in the input stream."







Another problem is that most personal computers end up



costing considerable more than the ads imply. The $100 model



does not really do very much, and the $1,000 version usually



requires additional payments for the disc drive or the printer or



the modem. Since there is very little standardization of parts



among the dozens of new competitors, a buyer who has not done



considerable homework is apt to find that the parts he needs do



not fit the machine he bought.







Software can be a major difficulty. The first computer



buyers tended to be people who enjoyed playing with their



machines and designing their own programs. But the more widely



the computer spreads, the more it will have to be used by people



who know no more about its inner workings than they do about the



insides of their TV sets--and do not want to. They will depend



entirely on the commercial programmers. Good programs are



expensive both to make and to buy. Control Data has invested



$900 million in its PLATO educational series and has not yet



turned a profit, though its hopes run into the billions. A



number of firms have marketed plenty of shoddy programs, but they



are not cheap either. "Software is the new bandwagon, but only



20% of it is any good," say Diana Hestwood, a Minneapolis-based



educational consultant. She inserts a math program and



deliberately makes ten mistakes. The machine gives its



illiterate verdict: "You taken ten guesses." Says Atari's chief



scientist, Alan Kay: "Software is getting to be embarrassing."







Many of the programs now being touted are hardly worth the



cost, or hardly worth doing at all. Why should a computer be



needed to balance a checkbook or to turn of the living-room



lights? Or to recommend a dinner menu, particularly when it can