Image provided by: Texas A&M University
About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 18, 1982)
Computers: photo by Diana Sultenfuss John Marion, a freshman at Texas a home computer system, which A&M, demonstrates some Apple II makes him popular, especially math functions. Marion said he has when he brings out video games. Expensive toys are catching on by Nancy Floeck Battalion Staff In an age when everything from CIA files to jars of peanut butter at Safeway are compute rized, it's only natural to want to bring home a slice of tech nology. And people are doing just that. Advanced technology has made micro-computers econo mically feasible as well as temp ting and functionally diverse. Professors, students, house wives and businessmen are let ting computers do their work, or at least assist them, while work ing in the comfort and privacy of their home. Micro-computers available for home use range from large, multi-accessory systems to hand-held pocket computers barely a foot long and little more than half as high. * Their processing abilities fol low an equally diverse path — with the right software, sets of programs and instructions for the computer system to follow, they can spit out letter-perfect term papers or display full-color three-dimensional illustrations of molecules. In the Bryan-College Station area, harried students and pro fessors are among the ones be- nefitting from having a compu ter system listed among the comforts of home. Most home computers used by students and professors are stand-alones, and have mem ory, computing, processing and printing abilities independent of a master system. But, although these are cap able of mass storage and proces sing, they don't have the infor mation many need to complete their work. This information is in WYLBUR, the University computer system used by stu dents. Solution? Students can buy a small accessory called a modem. Hook the modem to the home computer, hook the modem to a telephone and dial. Now the home system can communicate with WYLBUR, and the student has control of the situation with out battling the teeming masses of computer science, BAna and engineering-types in the Re mote Computing Center. Actually, Patty Young, owner of Young Electronics, said these home systems can do about any thing their owners wants; it's all in the software. "One buys basically a shell," she said, "and makes it into what he wants it to be." Young and Kyle McDonald, a programmer at American Com puter Development Inc., said the most popular home compu ter is the Apple II because of the variety of available programs for the system. "It'll do anything a big com puter will do," McDonald said, "but not as fast." Maybe the big decision isn't whether to use a computer sys tem at home; it could be whether to buy a personal micro computer or rent a terminal. The lowest price for an Apple II was cited at about $1,100. Add a modem and the price rises by at least $100. And a printer, which transfers work from the computer to paper, will increase that price tag by a minimum of $400. Now, if a terminal, or screen that displays the work being typed in, is all a student needs for his computer homework and he wants to escape with a little less financial pain, he can rent a terminal for $45 or $65 a month, depending on the size of the screen. But these are dummy termin als; they can't process informa tion without being hooked to another system, such as WYL BUR. They also have no mem ory, so when the student is finished, he won't have a stored copy of his work. Young said most students opt to buy their own computers. But Apple II isn't the only computer students find attrac tive. Radio Shack sells a small hand-held computer that pro cesses, stores and prints, all for less than $300, By October, com puter marketing representative Tom Cahill said, a hook-up with WYLBUR also will be available for this mini TRS-80. "What it is doing is replacing programmable calculators," he said. "It's a true technical break through. The pocket computer, to me, is a symbol of the degree to which micro-computers have permeated our society." Pocket computers also seemed to have permeated the minds of many professors; Cahill said they buy micro computers to plan and figure homework problems and test questions. Cahill said the average stu dent buys a computer with ab out 16,000 characters of cassette memory. The Radio Shack mod el he cited costs $999, with an additional $40 for software. Home micro-computers are most popular with graduate stu-