[54]. Presumably VAX-man chose his name with both the VAX minicomputer series and the Pac-Man game in mind.
[55]. The 414 invaders fortunately didn’t alter radiotherapy information. But they reportedly did zap a file used to bill customers a total of $1,500 for computer use.
[56]. After writing a draft of this chapter, I helped Nye prepare a section of his black box guide.
I find it to be useful, but overly technical for some lay people.
Nye may be reached at Marketing Consultants International, Suite #214, 100 West Washington St., Hagerstown, Md. 21740. Call 301/791-0290 for the latest information about the guide’s price and other details.
[57]. My thanks to J. Michael Nye, for calling my attention to the problems of incomplete erasures. Ed Bigelow, of Adevco, a Pennsylvania company selling networks to link computers in the same office, also was helpful.
[58]. The Lutus story is from Popular Computing.
[59]. Nilles is in a position to keep track of statistics associated with telecommuting. He has done numerous telecommuting studies as a senior research associate with the Center for Futures Research at the University of Southern California. Nilles has written an important pioneering work in the field—The Telecommunications/Transportation Tradeoff: Options for Tomorrow.
In this chapter I am indebted not only to Nilles but also to work that the Stanford Research Institute did. SRI’s three-part study, completed in May 1977 for the National Science Foundation, appeared under the main title Technology Assessment of Telecommunications/Transportation Interaction. The first part is Volume I: Introduction, Scenario Development, and Policy Analysis, by Richard C. Harkness, available for $17.50 in paper and $4.50 on microfiche as PB-272-694, from the National Technical Information Service, U.S. Department of Commerce, 5285 Port Royal Rd., Springfield, Virginia 22161. The second is Volume II: Detailed Impact Analysis by Harkness; $70 in paper and $4.50 on microfiche, PB-272-695. The third is Volume III: Contributions of Telecommunications to Improved Transportation System Efficiency by A. E. Moon and J. M. Johnson, E. P. Meko, H. S. Proctor, and C. D. Feinstein; $14.50 in paper and $4.50 on microfiche, PB-272-696. Needless to say, Alvin Toffler’s Third Wave (New York: William Morrow, 1980) contributed greatly to popular interest in the subject of telecommuting.
[60]. The example of the Florida-based telecommuter is from “Rising Trend of Computer Age: Employees Who Work at Home;”[Home;”] New York Times, March 12, 1981, p. 1.