Of course, with today’s imperfect technology, such hookups can be a real struggle. But so often they’re worth it.
You could say the same, indeed, of micros in general—today and in the future.
It seemed especially true when, for my last chapter, I tried to reach Arthur Clarke’s micro in Sri Lanka. I wanted him to answer questions about microcomputers in 2001—the year in which his Hal was killing humans. Did our phone-computer connection succeed? Read Chapter 14, “As the Jungle Thickens.”
Struggles notwithstanding, computers often do pay for harried professionals and business people. “This $5,000 machine has saved me from hiring a $20,000-a-year assistant,” said a New York investment adviser using an IBM PC to write reports and make financial calculations at home. A young trader forsook the bedlam at the New York Cotton Exchange for an electronic office in his apartment. Now he can go to work in his bathrobe and delay his shower until lunchtime. “It’s more challenging this way,” he said. “More contemplation, less raw instinct.”[[5]]
Another self-employed man, Jimmy Carter, composed his memoirs on a word processor—perhaps inspired by the example of a former Carter speech writer who wrote a well-reviewed book on national defense.
Then there’s Isaac Asimov, the legendary science-fiction novelist, who, even with an ancient manual, could write faster than the old Teletype machines could clatter along. But he didn’t always produce the neatest copy. “How different now!” he exulted in an article. “Staring at a page of type on a television screen, I eagerly look for typos so I can have the fun of changing them.” You needn’t be a professional author, however, to benefit from computerized writing. In Maryland, an architect-consultant, once typewriter shy, is now churning out reports several hundred pages long on his IBM PC.
“A boon to the small businessman” is how Hugh Hunt, a son of the late oilman H. L. Hunt, described micros. “Now he can compete with the larger corporations as far as obtaining data and processing it quickly.”
Hunt himself was using portable computers in his land-development business. But he also noted their helpfulness in law:
“Computers are one of the ways that small attorneys can compete with large corporations. By joining a computer bank, they can research briefs and do word processing, just as the large companies can.”
Many Americans apparently shared his views. In 1985, they might buy six million computers for business use, and within two more years, that number might almost double.[[6]] While I was writing this book, the United States was emerging from the worst economic ordeals since the Great Depression; a few college graduates had been reduced to shopping-bag ladies, but the microcomputer business was still growing, even if at a reduced rate. You might wait three months or more for your Macintosh or IBM. Some companies died, but others took their places; and even in times of inflation most prices on micros were dropping; years would pass before scientists could no longer keep dramatically increasing the silicon chips’ powers. Forget about the physical smallness of the chips. It was as if the entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley—in exploiting the scientists’ advances—were opening up a vast electronic territory. “The only thing you worry about with computers,” Hunt said, pleased, “is ‘Should I wait until something better comes along?’”