The Silicon Jungle by David H. Rothman

move the cursor? How easily can you control the program without a mouse? Footnote 105: I’m basing the “windows-shopping” questions on points raised by various micro publications, especially _Popular Computing_, May 1984, p. 96. BACKUP X ❑ Of Mice and Men—and Touch Pads, Touch Screens, Etc.[106] “If you’re a trained, high-volume production typist,” asked Seymour Rubinstein, the WordStar developer, “what are you going to do with a mouse except feed it cheese?”[107] Footnote 106: For background in researching this appendix—but not for the opinions, strictly mine—I’m grateful to Forrest M. Mims’s excellent article “A Few Quick Pointers.” It appeared in May 1984 _Computers and Electronics_. Footnote 107: Rubinstein’s “cheese” quote is from _InfoWorld_, May 14, 1984, p. 57. Score one for Rubinstein. He says mice are great—if you have three hands. Doing graphics? A mouse, maybe. But damned if I’m going to take my hands off the keyboard to push the cursor from one spot on the screen to the next. It’s simply too much wasted motion. I instead just press the cursor keys right above the main keyboard. Or I use WordStar’s cursor-moving commands. And even if I hadn’t learned touch typing a quarter century ago, I’d still wonder if a mouse for word processing wasn’t the Silicon Valley version of _The Emperor’s New Clothes_. Next time you’re in California, maybe you’ll see Apple execs naked in the streets as well as their hot tubs. Well, maybe not. The mouse could be a great marketing tool for sales reps peddling Macs or Apple IIc’s to people hoping to do word processing. But experienced typists? Many would probably groan over all the excursions that the mouse forced them to take from the main keyboard. Some enemies of mice—cats?—also wonder if jockeying the cursor this way couldn’t be a little tiring for people writing or typing. Think of the hand-eye coordination required. You’re rolling a palm-sized gizmo on your desk to position the cursor on a single letter at times, and that might not wear too well if you‘re working for hours on end. Mind you, the rodents have their friends, especially at Apple, where, inconsiderately, the hardware wizards didn’t even favor the Macintosh with cursor keys. Joe Shelton, the Apple products manager mentioned in Chapter 7, says he does most of his writing with a mouse. He suggests the mouse-equipped Macintosh for “naïve users.” Your term, Joe. Now I’ll slightly water down my jeremiads. Macintosh-style computers offer nifty graphics and nice offbeat typefaces. So some trendy writers may want one—rodent or not. And if you’re an executive or someone else not doing heavy word processing? Then maybe, just maybe, a mouse is for you. Perhaps you’re working with spreadsheets, a number of programs in fact, and you write only a small fraction of the time. Richard Webb—a partner at Peat, Marwick and Mitchell, the big accounting firm that advised Apple during development of the Macintosh and ordered thousands of them—swears by the mouse for spreadsheets. He says that alone would justify the mouse. I’m not a spreadsheet artist and will take a pro’s word. But at least for heavy-duty writing and typing, the old cursor keys are my best bet. Graphics is different. There, the cursor keys are more cumbersome. One artist, however, wanted not a mouse but an electronic “pad and a stylus”; he might be happy with a =digitizing tablet=—also known as a =graphics tablet=—like the well-known KoalaPad. You can write on this surface with a stylus or your finger and the computer will display the lines on its screen. A =touch-sensitive screen= is still another possibility—for some people—both in word processing and graphics. You point your finger at a spot on the screen. Bingo! You can start moving a paragraph or perform graphics magic. But touch typists may face the same problem as with the mouse—wasted motion—and some people may tire of reaching up to the screen again and again. Also, touch-sensitive screens may not be precise enough for you to pick out just one number or letter. Hugh Hunt raised an interesting issue. “What happens if a fly lands on the Hewlett-Packard screen?” he asked someone about a computer with a touch screen. Well, I hear, the HP 150’s screen uses infrared touch sensors that are more than fly length from the glass. “Debugging” the 150, Hewlett-Packard must have thought of _everything_. Yet other pointing devices are: ● The =joystick=. Moving the stick around, you move the cursor. A neat idea. But it’s more fit for video games than word processing and many other business programs—you just can’t point exactly. ● The =trackball=. You move the cursor by rotating a ball inside an enclosure. Want the cursor to go faster? Then rotate the ball more energetically. The trackball is found most often in arcade-style systems. It’s great for chasing aliens and may have uses in spreadsheets and data-base management, but some people say it’s an abomination for word processing. ● The =light pen=, with which you could electronically “draw” on the screen. _Draw?_ Okay. _Write?_ Well, it’s “wasted motion” time again here, as with the other items on this list. As computers climb the executive ladders—as more nontypists use them—these alternatives may grow in importance. And what about people on the factory floor? They may use such gizmos to make new inventory entries or machine adjustments. Partly the world is learning to type, and partly the computer is learning to understand devices other than the keyboard. What cursor-control gizmos are ahead? I’ll keep reading the _National Enquirer_ articles about people moving objects with their minds. Maybe, the hard-core hackers are thinking, the next gimmick will feature some user-friendly ESP. BACKUP XI ❑ The Micro Connection: Some Critical Explanations When John Fuller hooked up his Heath micro over the phone lines to the Wang at his office, he had a head start on many other do-it-yourself telecommuters. He wasn’t a computer or electronics rookie. For years he had worked around big IBM’s and Honeywells, and while telecommuting, he was a computer and management consultant with the navy. He even soldered together his H-89—a kit. And, anyway, he was communicating with another smaller computer, a Wang word processor. Does that mean you should give up on do-it-yourself telecommuting because of the technical complexities? No. Not at all. Before hiring a consultant, you might consider two possible sources of free advice: (1) your corporate data-processing department, if you have one, and (2) users groups, whose phone numbers you can get through dealers. Before approaching anyone, though, learn the basics of the technology. A =modem= converts the _0_s from your computer into one pitch and the _1_s into another, and that whine, you’ll recall, goes out over the phone lines. The “mo” in “modem” stands for “modulator”; the “dem,” for “demodulator.” And a “dem” springs into action at the other end—demodulating the whine back into the _1_s and _0_s. Modems come in two varieties, =direct connect= and =acoustically coupled=. The direct-connect modem hooks between the phone line and your phone, or between your phone and the handset. Its whine transmits better over static-ridden lines than do acoustic couplers, but it’s normally a little more expensive, and hard to install if your phone lacks =modular plugs=, the tiny plastic ones that unsnap. Using an acoustic coupler, you cradle your handset in rubber “earmuffs.” A small speaker whines into the phone transmitter; a little microphone picks up the sound from the handset’s receiver. Acoustic couplers don’t need phones with modular plugs, obviously—a boon to traveling executives—but they might not work if the handset is oddly shaped, as it is with some of the new-style phones. Also, loud noises in the room can confuse them. A direct-connect modem, for that reason and others, would probably be better for your regular office. Also, consider a =full-duplex= modem in most cases. No, it isn’t a modem for two-family houses. “Full duplex” is just jargon for computers jabbering back and forth, both ways, at once. Like two people on the phone. A =half-duplex= modem would allow just one-way communications without switching; it’s somewhat comparable to a radio with an unwieldy send-receive control. There are times, however, when half duplex would be best. Normal phone lines, =voice grade= ones in telephone company language, can’t handle computers jabbering at too high a speed, and half duplex may work better than full. Like most modems for personal computers in the early 1980s, Fuller’s gizmo transmitted information at 300 baud—equivalent to 300 bits a second, 30 characters per second, or 360 words per minute at 5 letters a word. When telecommuting, however, you may be better off with a modem going 1,200 baud. After all, it can zip material over the phone lines at four times the speed, and that means you’re tying up your modem less on long documents. You might not be tying up _yourself_ if you run an operating system like Concurrent CP/M, which lets your computer handle electronic mail while you’re using it for other purposes; but a 1,200-baud modem is still a good investment if you can afford it. You may well be able to. Soon 1,200-baud modems with auto-answer features will commonly sell for well under $300. Sent through a modem, the =data bits= are those conveying the information itself. And the =start bits= and =stop bits= keep track of the beginnings and ends of your micros’ characters. The most common setting is a =word length= of 8 data bits and 1 stop bit. =Parity bits= may help the computers check for errors caused by static and other electronic noise. Parity is said to be “even,” “odd,” or “none.” This =error-checking= method has its drawbacks. It may fail if the mistakes cancel each other out—and it’s slow since it checks every character. Some =communications programs= (the ones allowing computers to talk) lack this feature. The most common parity setting is “none”—when you tell your software not to do parity checks. A few other wrinkles in such programs are: FILE TRANSFER That’s the ability to send whole files of text or data—including programs, too. CAPTURE ABILITY With =capture ability= you can keep a record of each end of a keyboard conversation with both people typing away. You tell your computer to open up a =buffer= in its RAM—the temporary memory. The buffer captures the conversation. And if it fills up, some software will automatically “write” to your floppy disk, then reopen the buffer. Some programs won’t write to the disk at the ends of your conversations unless you command them to, meaning that the absentminded will see their bits and bytes vanish. PROTOCOL FLEXIBILITY Beyond changing bit numbers, etc., you may want software that can handle different kinds of protocols—sets of rules telling how computers transmit different sets of information. One possible protocol for you to use—at least in conversations with other micros—would be the =XMODEM Protocol= or =Ward Christensen Protocol=. The receiving computer tallies up the number of bits and bytes transmitted from =blocks=—tiny parts of material—and compares this =check sum= to the number that the originating machine says it sent. And if there’s a mismatch? The receiving computer asks for the block again. You might also use no protocol at all. It’s as if you’re sending material simply by tapping away on the keyboard without any elaborate rules for the other person’s machine. You two should still, however, agree on basics like baud rate, data bits, stop bits, and parity. Protocols use =handshaking= as part of their bags of tricks. Handshaking, computers swap bits and bytes to verify that they’re on speaking terms. A common form is =XON/XOFF=. Some mainframes use XON/XOFF to talk to micros and vice versa. The receiving computer gives an XOFF signal, telling the transmitting one to pause while the receiving machine “writes” to its disk. XON means, “Okay, my buffer’s almost empty. Send more!” Without this =flow control=, you might overwhelm the buffer and lose information. AUTOMATIC DIALING AND OTHER TRIMMINGS Some modems will let the communications software dial for you or at least let you feed the number in from your keyboard. Some also have =automatic log-on=. That lets you check onto a network or bulletin-board system without typing out your ID or password. Many =intelligent modems=, by the way, even without special software, can remember and dial phone numbers automatically and spit out log-on sequences and passwords. VERSATILITY Want to speak to a number of computers? Then buy software allowing you to set: ◼ Baud rate (speed of transmission). ◼ Data bits. ◼ Stop bits. ◼ Parity. ◼ Terminal emulation. It means making the micro imitate popular brands of terminals. ◼ Half or full duplex. Full is most common in micro communications. ◼ The type of handshaking protocol. Ideally, the software will also: ◼ Accommodate a variety of modem types. ◼ Designate the host—which computer will manage the =echo back= (which makes the typed conversation appear on both screens). ◼ Let you choose different protocols. All those features, of course, might still not let you communicate easily with your corporate computer. It may not use the =ASCII= code, for instance, which most micros do. “Since you ASCII’d, anyway,” as _PC Magazine_ once punned, “those five letters are an acronym for the American Standard Code for Information Interchange.” With ASCII, an “A” is one combination of _1_s and _0_s, “B” is another, “,” is another, and so on. When communicating with a mainframe capable of ASCII, it may not matter what brand of micro you’re running. So don’t reflexively think Big Blue for telecommuting. The proud IBM mainframes, however, like aloof mandarins of old China, jabber away in a dialect of their own, =EBCDIC=—it’s similar to ASCII but different enough to cause serious problems. Now that doesn’t mean your home computer won’t work with an IBM mainframe. But it may require special programming that will translate from one set of codes to another. Of course your corporate mainframe may also need a string of =control characters= to open or close an electronic file, and here your word-processing software may matter more than your communications program. The control characters normally are just letters tapped out in combination with the control key to give commands to your computer. They generally don’t print out on paper; they may or may not show on the screen. In this case, controls characters pass the commands on to another machine over the wires. And so you may have to =embed= the control characters in your electronic files. If your word processor won’t let you embed control characters, you may not be able to communicate with some kinds of mainframes. WordStar lets you do this. An issue more basic than control characters is whether you’re using =synchronous= or =asynchronous communications=. The former is a staple among the big mainframes; the latter, among micros. In synchronous communications, the two computers or modems employ timing signals to separate characters sent in one stream. Synchronous has a big advantage. You can send at 4,800 baud over regular phone lines; you can’t with the asynchronous method, or at least not with late 1984 technology. But “synch” is more expensive—the needed modems typically cost well over $1,000. Asynchronous, moreover, doesn’t require timing signals. It’s the simplest form of communications between computers; and more and more data-processing departments have added asynchronous ports for micros to dial up. John Fuller himself was communicating not with a giant computer but a dedicated word processor in his office, which, like most, talked ASCII asynchronously. He solved other problems on his own. You may need a consultant to do what Fuller did. But take heart. It could well be worth it, what with the time and money your telecommuting may spare you and your employer. “I’m saving gas, dressing in comfortable grubbies when I write,” Fuller said in an article about his experiences, “and with the direct connection I can _prove_ that I’m working. I turn out my reports faster. My computer is really paying off. Now,” said the self-deprecating Fuller, “if you’ll excuse me, I have to repel invaders from space.” BACKUP XII ❑ MODEM7: An Almost-Free and Fairly Easy Way to Talk to Other Computers MODEM7 may be free, but it _works_. With it you can talk to computers thousands of miles away _if_ they’re running MODEM7 or compatible software. Normally, your only real expense is for the modem and maybe cables; you might spend as little as $100. Using MODEM7, you can send letters, reports, or programs already on your computer disk. Or you can receive them. You can also: