THIRTEEN
Is the machine 8 bits or 16 bits; and how big is the random-access memory? Remember, 8 bits may be fine for word processing and light-duty accounting, but 16 bits might be better for complicated spreadsheets and is a definite advantage in data-base applications.
At the very least in the business world, you want 64K of RAM for word processing and 256K or even more for intimidating calculations.
You may find that a micro just isn’t powerful enough to handle a mailing list in the tens of thousands or process the payroll of Exxon. They’d be uses fit for a mainframe or at least a mini.
FOURTEEN
What about mass storage—in other words, devices like disk drives? Can they hold enough information for your business?
If you need to juggle around great masses of material in a hurry, you may want a hard disk, which is more expensive than the floppies.
Remember—one character equals one byte and you can squeeze most numbers into one or two bytes. Estimate your needs by calculating how many pages by how many bytes per page, etc., then double your result to allow for growth and the unforeseen.
Don’t just consider storage capacity. Think about the ease of making electronic copies of information you squeeze into your computer. A hard disk capable of holding the equivalent of five thousand typewriter pages is nice. But you still must contend with floppies for backup if the hard disk fails. You must either make backup copies as you go along or else, every so often, hold a long, tedious copying session.
Fortunately, the price of hard disks is dropping quickly enough that in the future you might be able to afford a second hard disk to back up the one in the machine. Some micros can back up on a standard videocassette recorder—a good four-hour tape will hold 100 megabytes. Besides, there’ll eventually be cheap, reliable, roomy memories without any moving parts.