Even then, however, you’ll still want copies of some kind, especially if failures would zap thousands of pages of hard-won information.
FIFTEEN
Must your computer system accommodate more than one user? Will it work well with people tapping into it from different terminals—those machines with the keyboard and screens but little or no computing power of their own?
Computer makers ballyhoo many micro systems as being “multiuser,” but often there are hitches.
These machines may let one person do accounting and the other do word processing at once but might not allow two people to run the accounting program simultaneously. And what about data bases and electronic file cabinets? Can more than one person simultaneously update inventory records, for instance? And will the computer slow down much if too many people use it at once?
Still, properly chosen, a multiuser system is a great way to share information with many people and not have to jockey floppy disks around all the time. Then there’s the cost. A multiuser system for twenty or thirty persons may cost less than half of what individual desktop computers might.
Instead of a multiuser system, however, you might still go with full-blown computers—but network them.
Networking is basically what it sounds: tying together machines to help them share letters, reports, data bases, and other electronic files. (See Chapter [13], “Net Gain$,” for a fuller explanation.)
SIXTEEN
Can you expand your computer system without difficulty, adding more storage, for instance, or devices like a modem to help you communicate over the phone lines?