Is made possible by the Twin Cities offices of Citibank citicorp providing Financial Services to the world since 1812 Dale Archibald is in the studios today to take questions about the use of computers and we'll get to him and your calls after we take just a moment to update you on the weather skies are generally Fair around Minnesota this morning with temperatures ranging from the 30s in the North to the forties in the south high pressure will produce strong southerly winds in warmer temperatures under partly cloudy skies today and tonight then a low pressure trough from the West when moving to Minnesota tomorrow giving a chance of showers in northern Minnesota. Otherwise, the Outlook is for partly cloudy skies and Mild temperatures during the day tomorrow in the Twin Cities fair with a high of around 52-day a partly cloudy tonight with a low in the mid-thirties partly cloudy Breezy with a high in the low 50s is the forecast for tomorrow.The Archibald is editor of the computer user magazine, which is distributed free each month throughout the Twin Cities area. You have to pick it up. It isn't delivered to your home, but it's in the skyways and some of the malls another downtown areas will open the phone lines and just a bit for your questions about the Practical use of computers in homes offices. And for Education Dale welcome. It's a pleasure to have you back again. Thank you. I think the last time you were here or at least one of the recent times you were here was just after IBM introduced its PC Junior the peanut has it was called what has reaction to that been over the past year or so, but when the PC Junior first came out, it was an underpowered machine with a very poor keyboard and IBM has since come out with an upgraded typewriter style keyboard instead of the theSounds like typewriter style rather than the calculator keys to use to have and they've come out with her and expanded power supply so that now the machine can have much more memory originally it had the capability to store 128000 characters or 128 K. But a lot of the IBM programs that are on the market require much more than that and no by buying this new power supply and attaching it to the side and putting the extra memory into it. You can use programs of up to 512k. IBM is promoting it very strongly they're trying to Blitz the public ticket to get that machine out and if they're lucky they will how have other manufacturers responded to that product. Well I saw an ad and if I wasn't an adequate one of the magazines was talking about howThe codename for the PC Junior was the peanut and this award was something like to Texas Instruments for turning 2 million of their ti-99 4A is into white elephants At The Mention Of The Peanut will open the phone lines for a listener questions now about the practical uses of computers Dale Archibald here in the studios to 276 thousand is the phone number for those of you in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul area to 276 thousand. In other parts of Minnesota are toll free line is available. That number is 1 800-652-9700 1 800-652-9700 anywhere within the state of Minnesota, and if you're listening in one of the surrounding states or in Ontario, you can call us directly in the Twin Cities area 612-227-6084. We take the first call Dale. I want to give you a chance to talk a bit about.Computer Fair that's coming up in conjunction with the Science Museum of Minnesota. What what is that about? And when is it will be on November 24th starting at about 9:30 in the morning and it's an all day Affair where we've invited the user groups that the Grassroots movement of people who own a particular brand to come in and demonstrate their machines and show what they like about them some of the more modern equipment. It's so new that they don't have you as a group. So we've invited some of the vendors to bring those in so the people can come in and ask questions. It's a non sales environment. It's a chance for people to come into one room at the Science Museum of Minnesota 10th and Wabasha and be able to compare write write all of them together rather than having to go from story to store be to store and endure the sales pictures that are coincident with exactly The question I had is and I'd like to have your opinion about the advertisement does the television commercials that we see here that are advertising up computers. I don't know if you know which manufactured is nothing really matters, but it's you know, John he's having problems in school and the teacher says he needs a he needs a computer. So the parents rush home and buy a computer because everyone else has one and suddenly Chinese gradescope. You know, what we feel about that is that not so much the advertising but the real substance of what they're trying to say. They're well, I was watching The A-Team here a couple of weeks ago sitting at the television in the basement and they had one of those commercials come on and I griped the whole way up the stairs to take my dish back to the kitchen cuz it's so ridiculous. It's a lot of Manufacturers are trying to pull this huge guilt trip on parents that well only if you buy a computer will your child be able to Just into the next decade and it's just absolutely ridiculous. If the family is oriented towards learning books or magazines or going on walks together or doing anything like that is 10 times more effective than sitting there with some sort of a computer learning program or something like that. I'm intrigued that you would say that because you always hear that two computers are the wave of the present and certainly of the future and that those who are not literate in the use of computers are destined for not very a successful careers, but that's not the home computer sort of level certainly people should be literate with the machines but it's the kids are going to be exposed to them in schools anyway, and you know, there's a lot of debate about that whether that's that's even a good thing they're going to to run into him because they're in new technology and something that's new the kids pick up a lot faster than the adults. You don't see any adult video arcade game Champs lucky to hit the X to see if you have a question about computer use for Dale Archibald in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul area. Call us at 2 to 7. 6000 to 2276 thousand years and go ahead. You're on the air. But I do I have heard that they are very useful for word processing. And since I like to write do so professionally and as a hobby, I'm interested in being able to adapt computer to a word processor. My problem is and I don't know whether you can answer this question or not are their brand or what features should I look for in the word processor? It would depend on what sort of writing you do some inexpensive programs may not be able to give you more than 12 Pages without having to stop and start a new a new file. So if you were writing things that are normally 40 or 50 pages long look for the software that will fit what you want to do. The software is your first choice and then the second choice would be the hardware the type of print that you want myself I use a what they call a dot matrix printer in this is a pattern. Five little pins that hit the ribbon and Levi an image on the paper that looks like the character has a dot matrix. It's very fast and it's much cheaper than what they call formed characters Witcher those like a typewriter that I have been cast into a certain shape a dot matrix printer might run under $300 in print at a hundred two characters per second where a letter quality printer say $600 and bottom and them and possibly 12 to 15 characters per second. And I know when I first bought my equipment, I thought well g&o 15 characters a second. That's a lot faster than I can type and Then I sat there and said that but what if I have to type a a 20 or 30 page documents, I'm going to be sitting there for half an hour just with nothing to do twiddling my thumbs while a machine prints. Those are two of the things that you can should be aware of you suppose. They'll come out with the higher quality printers eventually go fast. Right. Now there's a laser printer on the market this probably the highest technology and that prints 8 pages per minute. And the quality is so good that you could almost use it to publish off of us almost as good as phototypesetting. Okay. We'll move on to another question for the Aloft evolve higher on the air. Pelican Rapids, and I was wondering what you could tell me about software and hardware for the vision impaired, and if you can give me places to look for more information. I'm glad you asked that question. I got a call not 15 minutes before I left to come down to the station here from the Courage Center Computer Club, and this is a new club that's been formed by Courage Center at 3915 Golden Valley Road, and their next meeting will be Thursday, December 13th at 7 p.m. That club is going to be for people with disabilities or those who want to help with those who have disabilities. For more information. You could call Dennis Meyer Meyer at Courage Center 5880 811 so our caller from Pelican Rapids would probably want to make the phone call consider the possibility of coming down for the meeting. How to make that phone call to the Twin Cities area 612-588-0811. Right? Right and there's also a magazine from Southern Minnesota call closing the Gap that is directed towards the handicapped. I'm not really that familiar with it. But that's strictly for the handicapped in the computer. Use are we trying and keep an eye out for things like this? And when I talked to Dennis Meyer, I asked him will anything that you get an information that would help the handicap. Please give it to us and example just loading a disc and one of these packages that controls all your data into a disk drive for someone who may be a quadriplegic is very difficult and he's going to just as an example give us a drawing and how is used in the lids of cottage cheese containers to make it easier for someone who can only manipulate one of those the head sticks to load and unload programs and that's important. Those of us who are not disabled don't realize how difficult to something like that can be. I'm not know what we're going to do another list near with a question high. You're on the air. I'm one of those who falls in the category of interested but haven't taken the plunge yet. I've looked around and have a an interest in writing. But all these computers are all these systems right? But I'm wondering if there's one that has been made specifically for writing and some perhaps limited number crunching to be done or where there might be a good source to look up information for hardware and software for writers. I think that writers Digest come out with something for writers almost any of the better 8 or $900 and up computers are better than that. They're real cheap ones. You want to look at machines that have 80 characters across the screen rather than 32 or 40 with some of them have you don't if writing is going to be your main function look for the capacity of the disk drive how many characters can be stored on a disk? The Atari for example stores 170000 characters the Apple Store something like a hundred twenty thousand characters. The IBM and IBM compatibles will store from 320000 to 360000 characters on the disc and that makes a big difference when you're you're flipping discs back and forth in and out of the machine and there are tons of software that are specifically designed for writing. There are probably a hundred different word processing programs. Look just decide what your needs are as a writer find the software then find the machine that fits would it be safe to make for the generalization that if a person is interested in Civilly and word processing and writing you can get buy a lot cheaper than if you want a system that also do Financial programs and other things. It it's true because when you're writing your stories needs aren't as large as they would be if you were trying to to figure out the budget for NPR for the next 6 months. You need a lot more room for a lot more characters. If you're writing your knees would probably be a lot less in terms of the data that you can store the speed that you're going to be doing things. You're not going to be crunching numbers. You're not going to be doing a lot of calculations if if writing is going to be your major task. So you don't need is fast a machine. I use an old Apple II plus that I've had about four years for a great deal of my writing and I've souped it up a little bit put a couple of little add-ons to it. I've also got an ibm-compatible machine just so I can see what's available for that. Almost every machine on the market from about I'd say $1,000 up is very good for word processing and some of the ones underneath that are to put the nice thing about Computing is that you can always spend more money. Now, you can say that about just about everything. It's 16 minutes past noon Dale Archibald in the studios today editor of the computer user magazine and we have more listeners with questions. Will you please your next along with the commission came a bunch of the software that the guy had but he didn't have much of the instructions sent to tell me how to use it. And so the software that I have that he sold me is sitting on the shelf. There's no way I can use it. But can you tell me where or how I can get instructions on that? You know, I might be able to use this machine was it You could join the music group. The Minneapolis user group has something like fifteen hundred members or more and what they do is they publish a magazine every month cost about $18 a year to become a member and by attending the meetings, you'll meet people who own the same equipment who owned the software and they have as all user groups to every level of sophistication from Neil two people who could use it like a supercomputer. How old are call her I get the address or phone number that group. Well, the listings of all of the different user groups that we can find are in the computer user and we have a calendar of those every month this month. The mini apples group is going to meet here in St. Paul at the University of Minnesota. On November 21st at 7 p.m. And they're going to have me as a speaker with my knees chattering together. They're up in front. But after that you'll get some good information. Anyway, if cars are interested in finding the names of these specific groups are in the magazine in the magazine is available free 18 minutes past the hour. We have our toll-free Line open now anywhere within the state of Minnesota if you have a question about computers for Dale Archibald, the number to call is one 806-529-7001 800-652-9700. Also a couple of lions in the Twin Cities are open again at 2 to 7. 6008. I'm not qualified to say because I've never read his book. Two persons with the kind of a problem with the lady. Well, I appreciate your opinion. Thank you for calling at 90 minutes after 12. Go ahead, please you're our next caller and they'll I was listening to your question 82512. Wondering how long I need to wait. Practical question before I can fire it up again. I heard that once it cools down especially outside. You have not to turn it on right away today. There's no problem letting you plug it in if it blows up don't send the bill to me know I'm kidding it. The technology is easily capable of having the equipment operated temperatures from something like 30 below 210 above so I wouldn't worry about plugging it in long as the ciders dried plug it in. Alright, here's another of us. There was a question about computers. Go ahead, please. Addition to go out and buy a new one. I'm wondering where can one find used computers that are good quality. Well, there are going to be more and more of them showing up in the store is I'm sure there's a new firm at least one new firm that advertises in the computer user by the name of the computer station that I'm aware of. This is the sort of technology is it's like an automobile it it may be outdated. But that doesn't mean that it's not a goodbye of people are driving cars that are 30 and 40 years old and still getting service out of them and the same with use computers. They'll be around for a long time as long as your software out there. They're perfectly applicable and you can often make a good buy you could also check in the classifieds in the computer user in the Minneapolis Tribune. Imagine the Saint Paul. Papers also have an area for data processing equipment. What would you look for in a used computer to test it out and make sure that the major parts were working properly. There's not really that much that can go wrong in the computer cuz most of its solid state probably the the thing I would be most cautious about would be the disk drives because those are electromechanical and enough to get bounced around a little bit. They could get out of sync someone but overall does not really that much I can go bad. If I don't think of his prices will be the price comparison between a used and new version of the same thing. Well, it's such a new markets at machines that are 3 and 4 years old are only two or three hundred dollars cheaper than a brand new. So you don't necessarily go to save a whole lot but could make the difference in values on a budget. Alright, another caller with a question on computers. Go ahead. Please figures. Will they get cheaper in terms of what they offer is it like calculators or do you think they've reached a plateau? Thank you very much. That's really tough to say personally. I think that if you wait 2 years years you just wasting time. I think that you should buy what you can afford now because what you gain an education and and knowledge of the capabilities of the machine in the software this on the market is is well worth whatever dollar savings that you're you could make the machines are going to get better, but the technology changes every day and you can't if you wait for The epitome you'll wait forever cuz things change the past or well for a color like this one or four others who are brand new to this how much computer is enough for a beginner another Rich. How much should you buy so that 6 months from now or a year from now, you won't be dissatisfied with it and have outgrown it and essentially wasted your money. I would say that 64 K 64,000 characters of what they call a random access memory, which is Ram shortened would be the minimum because that will allow you to do more. The apple is a 64 K Machine the early Apple. The newer ones are 128 K and the Apple II plus which was the original machine probably 15 20000 programs are out there for it. But the more random access memory you have the more intricate and larger your programs can be in so you can get much more accomplished in a few if you have a large business 64000 characters isn't enough that IBM compatibles when they're expanded will go up to 640 k64 640,000 character. So your programs can be bigger. You can manipulate more data but 64k at a minimum. I would say. All right, we'll move on to another caller with a question why you're on the air? I called earlier and asked about word processing and someone subsequently called in and gave you the title of a book and I miss that could give could you repeat it, please it's Peter McWilliams, MC. Capital Williams word processing book. And I don't know whether that's exact title. But if you go into almost any computer hardware software or bookstore in town, just tell him you want McWilliams his word processing book and they'll bring it out cuz it was pretty popular. Okay, good luck with your word processing Quest ma'am will take another listen to the question how you're on the air? If so, I need to get an answer to somebody's talking about the visually impaired people for programming. We just hired a consultant to his blind that's from a work for and the terminals for these people are extremely expensive and very difficult to find. But right now we are at University of buying one of these terminals. Which which terminal is it? There's a company here in Minnesota that makes something called the Genius which can it cost about $2,000 is from hate the company's microdisplays, I believe from Hastings and what you can do with that is increase the size of your type something double. So is twice the normal size. There's a company called a vast it's here in the Twin Cities a Vos and they manufacture a machine that can speak it can read what you type or what comes in across the screen and that's not anywhere near fifteen or twenty thousand dollars 26 minutes after 12 deal Archibald is in the studios today editor of computer user magazine and that toll free line is open again. If I'm not mistaken it one 800-652-9700. Here's another listener. Please what's your question and two out of psychological today, California? Somebody introduced their wife as a useless peripheral. Could you address that problem, please? Sure, that's one of the reasons the computer user has a sociology columnist where one of the few computer magazines that really does pay any attention to anything other than the hardware and software because the equipments affecting every part of our lives and to try and put it in a nice neat little categories like that is ridiculous. Are useless peripheral, I never call my wife that now that that's ridiculous. I One would guess if they're probably a lot of other problems in a marriage before one can blame the computer for causing up that sort of difficulty. I saw a report in like it was USA Today and they were talking about How the computer in a study that this one University considered they put them into different families and they watch the families and they found it after a few months. It hardly affected the the interaction of the family at all. If the family watched a lot of Television before then they might play a lot more with the computer. If you know if they weren't the types of were involved in that sort of thing than the computer wouldn't make any difference it had some impact but not as much as people would like to to claim. No that is not going to the cause that many problems what it does is if there's a problem there it may bring it out in the open. 28 minutes past the hour will take another listener with a question high around the air when I get an Apple 2E type computer cuz that's what they have in school have the discs for that. I've been real intrigued with a Macintosh and would like to have that for my business and I just how you view the two and if it can you tell me if programs are being developed for the Apple 2E that are similar to what the Macintosh can do. There are some in terms of Graphics programs that are coming out there using what they call windows on a couple of the Apple 2E programs and a window for those of you who've never heard the term or who have heard the term and didn't know what it meant is a window into a section of memory of the computer. So it's like there's a little Blocking in the memory of the computer that you can call up on screen so you can have this window on the screen and maybe it'll give you a choice of six or seven different things that you can pick and you just pick whichever one you want to do and you go on with with your program and the bigger machines will have seven or eight windows in between the Apple 2E in the Macintosh, which is what he's trying to comparing apples and McIntosh has no color the 128k machine, which is the early one out is a wonderful machine. It's it's superb in terms of Graphics everything but there is very very little software that's out for it yet. This is the Macintosh right? The fat Mac now is out which 512k machine and those who bought the skinny Mac with 128 K have to pay something like $1,000 to upgrade it to 5:12 when you have programs that are intricate you need more memory and The menu at the software Publishers are not coming out with that many programs for the regular McIntosh not the way they were talking about doing it. But now that the fat Mac is out there with more power. Come out with more software probably for it. I suppose there's a copyright to law which prevented them from using the term Big Mac. Probably we have a couple of lines open again in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul area at 2276 thousand. So if you got a busy signal before and have a question about computers for Dale Archibald try it again to 276 thousand. Meanwhile, here's a necklace near go ahead. You're on the air Mainframe computer and personal computers all-in-one. I've been working on his but not Apple Macintosh. Give me examples of word processing the Macintosh is much slower in response to command someone not in the market for a personal computer from a personal computers or is that just something that will the clock in a computer is a little quartz chip that pulses at a certain rate and they in the Apple II for example in that range. It'll pulse a million times the second and in the Macintosh pulse is over 7 million times a second, but there are so many other things that that clock is doing inside the Mac that slows down the response time on that machine. I have a circuit board called a z a t card in my Apple that operates it's something like 6 megahertz 4 million cycles per second and That's that's pretty pretty fast inside that machine. The IBM PC is at 4.77 megahertz. And the new AT&T is today 8 megahertz. There are a lot of different variables enter into how fast the machine can operate clock speeds one of them and because there is so much going on in the MAC at one time it may Be calm probably slower. There are benchmarks the magazines like bite and some of the others try where they'll they'll run the same program on every computer and then they have the time side-by-side but even speed in a certain program may not mean anything because some computers have great graphics and others have no Graphics chips are just design different. The architectures is better for some things and it is for others move on to another listener with a question for Dale Archibald high. You're on the air. I'm going from a rest stop and Bellaire Buzz words and so on and bringing the yacht the lingo of computer down to two what most normal people can understand. Well, thank you. I'm wondering about I've worked with computers micro computers for a year. and I found after World War II there was a gentleman by the name of dr. Dvorak who modify the keyboard placement of the keys on the keyboard that vastly improved typing speed of any individual who typing the regular standard keyboard to Dvorak keyboard. I went for about 50 to buy 90 words a minute or that sort of ergonomic her specialty type of keyboard that might increase productivity is the Apple to see for example has a little button on top of it that if you take a ballpoint pen you push it down and it turns into a Dvorak keyboard the standard keyboard and the QWERTY keyboard originated on mechanical machines because They didn't want to have the keys that you would hit often too close together cuz they stick so they try to space them out as much as possible. But now with the electronic keyboard is it doesn't matter where the keys are cuz there's nothing mechanical that's going to jam up as it would an old Underwood or something like that cuz it's hard. Once you learn the old-fashioned keyboard to pick up this new one. I've never used the Dvorak keyboard layout but they're there software on the market that will allow you to to change the configuration of your keyboard. Then you just put new characters down on your old keyboard their Hardware modifications for Apple computers. Almost anything that you want you can change inside the machine with the right Hardware or software. And you know, I've I've run everything from Lena type machines to typesetting machines to computers to you name it and you get used to any keyboard after a while. I heard the Dvorak is very nice, but I don't know how I type about 60 words a minute now and I'm I'm a writer not a type of so I don't have to be that fastball 60 words a minute isn't too shabby. Anyway, is that alright? Here's another question. Go ahead. Please go and would like to number one know something about the computer user magazine number to get mr. Archibald opinion on The Ataris are Commodore something of the sort as Budget Home computers one woman called in with a question about the use and is a low price computer a bargain or when the Trunchbull recommend something like Macintosh or whatever and also curious if there was a call earlier about the social ramifications. We have one user in our group. Can I type is a terrific programmer? But his wife does all his typing for him and that might solve some of the problems. They're having to answer your first question. The computer user is a free Advertiser supported magazine the advertisers pay to educate our readers and we distribute eighty thousand copies a month throughout the Twin Cities and we are planning to add more people who are in business or who are in the the date of processing business on our mailing list. We do have subscriptions. It is $12 a year. And that's a monthly magazine and our address is Suite 1030. 612 now I'm lost again 12 South 6. I'm sorry. I should have it in front of me and Minneapolis 55402. Okay, so it is available by subscription for people like their color in Northwest. Write 12 $12 a year. And last time I was on your show. I said 18 cuz I can never keep the numbers to words. I'm alright number to snow budget computer better than nothing or should you hold out till you can get something more expensive. It's entirely up to the individual. The Commodore is a good machine who would have thought five years ago that you could buy a machine with 64,000 characters and memory for under $200. I mean 20 years ago that machine would have filled the garage and would have cost and tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars if if a hundred and eighty eight or $199 is what you have and you want to buy the machine. Then I would I would go right ahead and do it. If you have more money by the best you can afford you're going to end up spending a lot more anyway, because once you have the computer, then you're going to need a way to put programs in and save data. So you'd have to have something like a die hard disk dry are floppy disk drive. You'll want to be able to see what your typing into the machine which will be there on your television set or a monitor. And again, this is extra expense. You want to connect it to a telephone. Well, then that's going to call from a modem which is short for modulator demodulator in that can send data through the telephone by the time you're done you're going to end up spending a lot of money. Then there's the printer does it have we have another question with a question about computers. Go ahead. You're on the air. Do you like today in chorus and just see if if you know just just for our own personal benefit. Is there anyway or anybody from rent computers like for a month or two months or so without having to spend two or three thousand and you have no need for 1 or no aptitude for order? Sure. They're in the Twin Cities are probably half a dozen different companies that do it and there are scads of classes. We list class is about every two or three months in the computer user just you know the wide variety just to give people a sampling there have been in schools and Commercial operations user groups have classes. If you're a really true beginner go to a user group meeting of a machine that you're interested in and just take a look at that what the people have to say or come to the user group fair that we're putting on on November 24th at the science museum. That's a chance. I forget what it's going to cost $4 or something for. A person in my family is going to be cheaper than that come and ask questions this if that's the place is no reason to feel ashamed that you're you know, not to Albert Einstein a Computing cuz this is a whole new technology that we're being exposed to. All right, we'll move on to another listen to rather question High where you calling from today. I was trained as a as a handwerker. I'm a commercial artist and we've seen some profound changes in the in the way up Commercial Art is done in photography and connected with computers ID curious. I know you're not a futurist, but I'd really like to hear what you have to say or what what three or four profound changes you can see if you visualize happening say in the next 50 years that are computer connected and how they're going to impact on our lives. I'll just hang up and listen. Well in art alone or if there are innumerable changes, I was sitting there the other day trying to decide if a company buys a personal computer and that means that they don't have to hire a new employee for a month then IBM in 1983 sold 600,000 IBM PCS in XTS alone. That's just one company at 600,000. Person months let's say and how many people does that put out of work in that short period of time we're going to have to spend some a lot of time and effort to try and understand the impact of this technology because it's going to affect all of us in almost every aspect of our lives in this one reason for the computer users looking into computer law and sociology and the technology is there it is. A fait accompli it's here. There's nothing we can do about the technology. But if we don't understand it, then we're really in trouble and you know, you could you can pick almost any Endeavor and the computers going to be involved in it in some way or another and I'm no futurist. I'll freely admit that I'm just a poor hack writer who got involved in Computing because he wanted it to write faster than a diamond word. You better write fast and it just got hooked. It's about 16 minutes before 1 deal Archibald is with us today. He's editor of computer user magazine and we have a few lines available. Once again in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul area. The number is 227-6057 question about the practical uses of computers. In other parts of Minnesota are toll free line is one 800-652-9700. If my grandson is in 11th grade and he's having pork to having problems with math, and my daughter wants me to help pay for a $2,000 computer for him and I don't see anybody in our family that can help him even with the computer. Don't you think that it's really kind of hard for a boy to just sitting down in front of a computer in Thai? Okay, here's the software and I can go to work and improve your bath you be better off buying a deck of in index cards and making flashcards out of them and just sit there with him and as a human being on it on that sort of level and working with him as an individual the computer is not going to Solve educational problems. It's a to Let's and that's all it is and to spend to Grand and something like that. You'd be better off to to use it to educate him how to enroll him in a school where they pay more attention to the basics or something. I don't know if you know, each problem is going to be individual the computer is not the end-all be-all and won't solve all problems. It's not going to help the kid learn the math, but I wonder if because of the computer is going to be as necessary for people to know how to do routine calculations as it used to be. Well, they said that about calculators to you know, teachers didn't want to allow calculators into classrooms. But you know, how did they do the same thing with the pencil, you know that, you know, we can't do that. We have to use chalk on a Blackboard because that's what we've been using for 50 years. It's a whole new technology. That's just, you know changing every Affecting everything and that's one of the reasons why our society is going to have to study every aspect of this social physical and mental moral if a if a child can't read They're not going to be able to use a computer. Then I can be able to do anything and the emphasis has to be on education and motivation of the child rather than on the hardware. A lot of times the computer is just, you know, parents buy it as an electronic babysitter. All right, we'll move on to another caller with a question. I had a large listening. Yeah, I guess it's sort of a follow-up from that the last caller. It seems to me we have a for the technology gap between kids who are going up and given getting some computer studies as early as the first grade kindergarten and parents who are at times fearful of what a computer is all about. What recommendations do you have for parents that they might become part of the learning process with her child and not be threatened with and I'll take my answer on year. Well people have to expose themselves to the technology cuz you're going to you're going to run into it eventually when I say that not everybody needs a computer. I mean if you don't need a computer, but people don't need color television sets or microwave ovens, or a lot of the things that we take for granted and use and enjoy. There's a lot of self-education that goes with Computing. There's a real fascination with the ease of suddenly accomplishing a task. There is this this whole new area of of learning that people can do at home in their own time accomplish things easier than they've ever done before enjoy a lot of new ideas and techniques that they may never been exposed to before and the kids are lucky. They're there right there in the classroom in their computers are accessible in the office or the home the computer may not be accessible or it may be considered a threat and things to do is learn that this just a gadget just a machine is like a calculating machine with you know, a little bit more power and that's all a computer is is nothing to be afraid of it's not a God In The Box is just something to learn about her with a question about computer used today how you're on the air? Yes, thank you for the show today. It's very good. I bought the I have two computers and that was the first I bought in 1982 and my experience has been that the maintenance on computers is something is not very well taken care of by the manufacturers are there or the sales outlets and I was wondering if you have any comments on works that might be in the cities or does your magazine Maybe cover some of that when you say maintenance exactly. What do you mean? Describe needs alignment or the motherboard goes out. Do you need do you need repair on your system? Right now? I have that situation in it and it's going to cost $500 to fix it for which brand of machine if I might ask her. Maybe I shouldn't ask cuz I asked Bob is it an IBM the disk drives are probably the most susceptible to problems. I've had my equipment for a long time the apple and I've had me out very few problems with it. And I have an IBM PC compatible and the drivers have a little grind to him already and I haven't had it 3-months. There are some very good repair services that are coming up and many of them advertised in the computer user. There is regular maintenance that you can do just to prevent problems. One of the things that people don't realize is that the static electricity that Is in an office or home situation can do it an awful lot of damage to a computer and there are ways to combat that if you see us a shot go from your finger into the computer somewhere in the bowels of that machine is it's doing something is going to go to ground somewhere. And the first time it does that is it's like making a little Notch and each time it does it it deepens that same night cuz it's found the weakest spot and it's going to continue until the chip fails. There are diagnostic programs. You can use that you just plug into the machine and try though and to try and unveil where your mistakes are where your problems are or are occurring. There are disc cleaning kits there all sorts of things like this and there are many good repair shops in the area that will handle that in stores and in Specialists the right. It's about nine minutes before 1 we have more listeners waiting with questions for Dale Archibald and your next head. Please call my son bought a TRS-80 trouble years ago and now has had an Atari 800 for over a year. Is there a market for his older women computer the TRS-80? Well, I would think that there would be someone who would be interested season you could place an ad in the classifieds or you might check with the TRS-80 user group and see if there's any interest in getting an older machine. If need be you might be able to. Earn some sort of a tax write-off by giving it to someplace like Courage Center for example for someone to get some use out of it. This is thing about the computer. It will be good for a long time and we can reach a lot of people and do a lot of good it is it possible to trade in used computers on new ones like you do with automobiles or hasn't gotten quite that sophisticated a lot of people who got one for for the youngster who's going off to school and I've got one in the home and then there's a whole new Gadget 2 comes out and I think I'll put the the second one down in the the Dannon that we can play games with it while I use this one for business. So old computers never die. They just had to move away I'm coming from Lindstrom and I have a couple of questions. I have heard that there are computers that will do musical function be interested in knowing what some of them was might be. And secondly, my husband has a small business and I would like to know if we use it for one that has he had no experience with computers where does one go and get the information as to how to begin to do those accounting functions on a computer or let me answer your second question first. There is a Minnesota accounting Aid Society here in the Twin Cities that we've written about two months ago. I think it was and they will train people about just basic accounting the computer should be able to accomplish some of the functions and we're planning in the early part of next year to have an account and start writing a column for us looking at various accounting package is general ledger package is a sort of thing. But the idea is to learn the basic accounting first then find the software that it will do it and the Minnesota. I'm sure it's the accounting Aid Society minute Minnesota accounting Aid Society and I'm probably wrong but as for musical functions, you'd have to get a machine such as a Commodore or an Atari some of them even have keyboards. Now that just fit right over the top of the the keys on the computer and when you press like a keys like a piano keyboard, it will play like a electronic organ so they do have that. We have about 5 minutes left here is none of us know where the question go ahead please I own a brother say 50 electronic typewriter, which I understand is computer compatible. What is this and how much I would be using it to know if you're going to be using it for 24 hour a day work with me a great deal of printing and it might not be satisfactory for what you want to do. But if they say is computer compatible you could use it for letters you could use it for manuscripts. But but in a business situation example where all day long you're typing out form. What is it would probably be too much for that. Well the lines it pretty well cleared out. I think we can take two or three more questions in the amount of time we have left. So if we didn't get to your concern about computers today to 276 thousand if you make a quick call in other parts of Minnesota one 800-652-9700 and we'll try not to be too many people in satisfied. Go ahead your next you. Give me a good sales pitch as to why the average household would need a computer. No. Help I can't give you a good sales pitch. You have to look at your own needs and see if you're interested in education. If you're interested in games, if you're interested in database management, you know, where you keep track of hobby or something like that self-education. These are things that you'll have to decide for yourself because as I said before you don't need a computer in the home, but they're fun and I want one another color. Let's see how many we can help you in the last couple 3 minutes. Go ahead. You're on the air. In about that brother typewriter, which is computer compatible can almost any small personal computer be hooked up to use that as a printer. So could I buy a personal computer and a type? I like that and then we're practicing with better quality forgot too much money. We have an article that's been in the hopper for about 2 or 3 months by one of our writers on just that subject and should be out in the first part of the year and perhaps in our December issue. Yes, you should be able to connect the typewriter to an inexpensive personal computer if the wiring or what they call the interface is correct and you can usually find cables that will allow that. Alright, here's another question. Go ahead. You're on the air. I have a question about modems. I recently brought an apple to eat and I would like a a simple fairly inexpensive modem and I was wondering if mr. Archibald could comment there are modems short for modulator demodulator at that range anywhere from about 6995 up for the Apple computer. I'm not going to name brands, but I would suggest you go into some of the stores and read some of the Apple oriented books to see the different types of modems that are out there some of the features that you might want to look at her. Do you want automatic dialing you on automatic redialing we need to terminal package with it in our December issue were going to heaven an article looking at Terminal software and telecommunication. You might want to look at that. Alright another color as we get close to the end. Go ahead, please. For Consumer use I don't know I guess just for a real variety of of applications. I saw an article. I think it was invite here in the last couple of months. But the technology is already coming up. They've got machines that can talk to you now computers that sound very lifelike and there are other machines with voice recognition so you could come up to a speaker in the at your door and say hi. It's me. Let me in and it'll open the door without your doing anything in this technology is already reaching the point where it's accessible and for the remaining college, but we have run out they'll Archibald is editor of computer user magazine. Thank you for coming in Dale. Thank you. Tell me a little bit. Just once again remind people about that computer fair in conjunction with the Science Museum of Minnesota. The computer Fair will be November 24th. That's the Saturday after Thanksgiving it'll begin at 9:30 in the morning. We're expecting Better than a dozen different brands of machines to be on display everything from apples to AT&T to IBM's to anything that we can get down there that has a group to show and it's a chance for people to walk in and ask the questions that they've you know, they may not even realize that they've got these questions this helps him verbalize and free of sales pressure, right? That's right. Okay. Thanks a lot. Appreciate it. Today's broadcast of midday was made possible by the Twin Cities offices of Citibank citicorp providing Financial Services to the world since 1812. Dave sleep was the engineer today want to thank also assures for answering the telephones should be a nice day across Minnesota today with partly sunny skies and warm temperatures do stay tuned more to come here on Minnesota Public Radio. This is Bob Potter. In the Twin Cities, it'll be mostly sunny this afternoon. The high should be around 50° tonight partly cloudy with a low in the mid-thirties tomorrow partly cloudy and rather Breezy with a high in the low 50s. You're tuned to the news and information service at Minnesota Public Radio. Ksjn Minneapolis. And st. Paul. It's one.