Behind The Screens
home compuiers and video games, one family television set isn't enough. Why not take out the old sets and repair them economically?" says Donald Emden, sales promotion manager for Philips. He explains that the campaign was created to let people know that reviving the old black-and-white TV set is cost-effective for families, and lucrative for parts manufacturers and retailers as well. "It's particularly helpful on weekends and during football season," Emden says.
The computer age has given the old boob tube a new lease on life.
—ROBIN RASKIN
Softening Software Prices
While the cost of personal computer hardware has plummeted over the past several years, the software crucial to its working wonders has not taken a similar dive. At least not yet.
Recently, however, at least two software companies have cut prices, and others are offering a number of "buyer incentives" such as rebates and "two-for-one" offers. Early signs of an impending price drop came last summer at a major computer trade show, the Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago. Commodore announced that it planned to dominate the software market by pursuing the same price-slashing tactics that had put it in the forefront of the personal computer market. Company executives predicted that priccs would drop to S9.95. Meanwhile, other manufacturers of games and educational software geared to the home market nervously reexamined their prices, most of which were set generally in the S25 to $35 range.
Some companies have lowered their prices a bit. Others, like Epyx, makers of popular adventure/action games, are playing with a flexible system. They no longer set a suggested retail price. Instead, they encourage the consumer to make the rounds and select the best buy.
Of course, in order for consumers to get more for their software budget. retailers have to follow suit with price cuts, a measure they're reluctant to take. Many believe there is more money to be made off software markups than hardware margins. (Personal computers are sometimes sold for just dollars over the wholesale cost.)
"There's no reason that quality software can't be selling for less than it generally is," says Dave Albert, marketing manager for Penguin Software, a manufacturer of games and utility programs for Apple, Atari, and Commodore 64 personal computers. Penguin dropped the price of its disk-format games from S29.95 to S19.95 almost a year ago. Within a month its business nearly doubled.
Epyx Marketing Coordinator Maria Orosz disagrees with this rosy view. "There has been a trend to drop prices, but it has been mainly close-out stock (software either about to be or currently discontinued)," she says. "The trend won't continue."
Retail and wholesale skepticism notwithstanding, it's safe to say that prices may dip somewhat. As the number of personal computers in use at home increases (only four percent of U.S. families have one), software manufacturers will be able to sell greater volumes of their wares, which should drive prices further down.
Of course, the S24.000 question is: How far down can they go?
Computer Reliquary
- An ancestor of today's personal computer, the Whirlwind, in an exhibit at the Computer Museum.
Classic computers never die. They just retire to The Computer Museum in Marlboro. Massachusetts. The only museum of its kind in the world, it is dedicated to "preserving the history of computing to enhance people's understanding of the present and future of technology, as well as its past," according to Museum Director Gwen Bell. Museum exhibits, lectures, and publications chronicle the computer's history—from the abacus to the present-day computer chip.
The museum is home to dated, but significant, dinosaurs—landmarks in the various stages of computer technology like the Whirlwind, MIT's enormous computer developed in the 1950s: and Shakey, one of the earliest artificial-intelligence robots. Seasonal programs offer lectures by such luminaries as Grace Hopper, one of the designers of the programming language, COBOL.
Founded in 1979 by Digital Equipment Corporation, one of the largest computer manufacturers in the country, the museum has since become an independent, nonprofit institution. Next summer, it relocates to Boston, where it will expand its archives and exhibition facilities.
—ROBIN RASKIN
Comp Lit
Tired of dog-earing favorite novels. Hipping through worn-out paperbacks in search of that quotation on the tip of your tongue? Computerized classics may be the answer, if the pioneering work of individuals like University of Southern California Professor Robert Dilligan becomes popularly accepted. Since 1949, scholars have been using computers to record and document great works of literature. IBM and the Vatican teamed up that year to sponsor the first project, in which data processors keypunched the complete works of St. Thomas Aquinas.
On-line literature can be analyzed and studied scientifically for stylistic consistency, elements that indicate influence from other authors, and other features—processes that ordinarily take hours of page-turning and note-taking. One of Dilligan's students input Milton's works, marking 40 features per line, which could then be retrieved and cross-referenced for thorough, painstaking literary analysis. According to Joseph Rabin, a professor at Queens College in New York and editor of a newsletter devoted to on-line literature, Compuiers and the Humanities, the key to the profitability and popularity of computerized literature lies in the use of data-base management programs that organize and sort through the the works on file. He says that right now, the need for literature on software for personal computers doesn't exist. "Before anybody's going to put whole texts on floppies, you've got to be darn sure the world wants to use it."
If you've got a good bite-sized, piece of computer-related netus involving people. trends, or innouations, let's hear it. We will pay $25 for each item we publish. Write to Behind the Screens, c/o family computing. 730 Broadway. NY. NY 10003.
leepers Creatures and My House-My Home are each available for $34.95 at your software dealer or from Kangaroo, Inc., 332 South Michigan Ave. Suite 700, Chicago, tL 60604, (312) 987-9050. Visa, MasterCard and personal checks accepted.
It's still around if you know where to look.
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. 1983 Kangaroo Inc.
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Give your child's imagination a boost with Kangaroo games designed for Apple and Atari computers.
leepers Creatures and My House-My Home are each available for $34.95 at your software dealer or from Kangaroo, Inc., 332 South Michigan Ave. Suite 700, Chicago, tL 60604, (312) 987-9050. Visa, MasterCard and personal checks accepted.
What
What
- Apple is a registered trademark of Apple'Jjpomptiters, Inc. Atari is a registered trademark oi Atari. Inc. Graptiics created with Penguin Software's Graptiics Magician.
READER'S DIGEST INTRODUCES SOFTWARE GOOD ENOUGH TO GO OUT AND
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