The Clarke-Hyams link was now in place. It hadn’t been easy. The two men were each using a $1,595 computer, a modem selling for several hundred dollars, and a communications program listing for more than $175, and Peter’s new printer cost several hundred; and those expenses normally would have been only the beginning. Kaypro had set up the software and offered other consultant-style services; Clarke used his own technician. If Average Company, Inc., had duplicated the computer link on both sides of the Pacific, the project might have exceeded $5,000. And yet clearly the technical hurdles seemed surmountable and the rewards worthwhile. Two weeks into the link Hyams had only one complaint—the difficulty of reaching an international operator at times to place calls. And in future years that problem would lessen as special computer links let Telenet spread into the world’s poorer countries. An attachment to make the Sri Lankan phone system compatible would cost the government several thousand dollars. And the expense to Clarke and Hyams would be perhaps $60 an hour—no great barrier, considering that they could transmit 1,000-word computer files in a fraction of that cost using 300-baud modems. With faster modems they might end up spending still less.
More important to Hyams right now, however, was the friendship he was building with Clarke—so important to the success of the film.
“I think we’re kind of linked in a strange way,” Peter said. “He’s written some lovely and sweet things. It’s strangely intimate. You’re just getting daily mail. It has some really wonderful advantages that letters have over telephone conversations.
“The kinds of questions that I’m asking him and the kinds of things I’m saying are things you don’t really say off the top of your head. You know, ‘What do you think about so-and-so?’ and you sit down and compose the answer and you write it back. Some of the stuff is purely personal. Some of it is not. I want him to experience the making of this movie. There are a lot of logistical details. I’ve spoken to some people that Arthur’s recommended I speak to. There are things to do with everything, from marketing to plans I have, to changes I want to make, to What does he think of certain things? to technical areas of the film that he can be enormous help with.”[[88]]
Clarke, using British spelling, modemed to me that the “connextion” with Peter Hyams was “invaluable. We are on exactly the other side of the clock, so I leave my machine on ANSWER with a file for him when I go to bed, which is about the time he goes to MGM, and when I get down to breakfast, there’s his answer on the disk.” If Peter worked late at night, the two men might save their “conversation” on computer disk so “there will be a complete record of our collaboration. It’s truly fantastic, like WordStar. I just can’t imagine how I ever managed without it. My big worry is that as more and more of my friends get plugged in, I’ll never be able to get away from the keyboard.”
A few days before Clarke sent his written answers for Eric Meyer and the others, he phoned him just as Eric had hoped. “I wouldn’t want to disappoint the boy,” Clarke said later. The Clarke-Meyer conversation was brief—words to the effect that Clarke would be in Washington in 1984 and he wished Eric luck in the future—but it served its purpose. “It’s the first time I’ve ever had an international call,” Eric said. “My first phone DX!”
My computer DX reached me one Saturday morning at nine, an uneventful occurrence except for a broken telephone connection when I dialed Clarke back to start the modeming. Our two Kaypros clicked the next try. I received a prepared file from Clarke of about one thousand words, and afterwards we tapped out some 250 words:
Q. When will you be coming to Washington so I can tell Eric, who naturally will want to attend your speech?
A. I am afraid it will be a very private affair, as it takes place in the White House! But I expect to be in Washington in late April.[[89]]
Q. I am planning to call my ergonomics chapter “The Hal Syndrome,” and if you’ve used that phrase before, I’d like to give you credit.