Downloading - Desktop Video Group
Contents
1. Sot E i g it 1 4 The meae of compoters in eave Basimgss and j e oe F ih M ne ee d fu ia vee L Paj 4 ae Eu f ess u e m FO emi gt Sao A Conversation with Ben Rosen If k le E E PAL T fip i ifn i t d T 1 a En H 7 7 4 Lj LI L d i 1 i 1 dir 1 ds TE LU f vd 3 J i 4 f F i z T ES lt hus cA mm i 4 ij a y r E 1 amp t i E ir r l L j H Ea T ee Understanding Computer Warranties J y C eS A World of Information C M Bulletin Board Systems Ka RP i Crary K iu s ih wi LI Y fs in un re r ee d um LE r 4 Sor Oe O LION f X A a Ye i Y UC NI Portia Isaacson MI eM A on P rsonal Robots e ul i z i Na 3i E n LP mv v N N s A 7 r i i RT 1 he E i A ecc A Boston Computer Society mm EN Er z m g AM m a a 1 em LJ Boston Computer Update Editorial Director Jonathan Rotenberg Managing Editor Mary E McCann Contributing Editors Ted Blank Barbaro Brown Doug Cooper Tracy Licklider Beth Lowd Cary Lu Wendy Q uinones Nancy Roberts Oscar Rodriguez Jack Stor Bonnie Turrentine Daniel Watt Lorry Woods Jon Zonderman Circulation Manager Sue Gladstone Typesetting Virginia McLaughlin Adams amp Abbott Inc2. computer as a sales pitch are Rosen believes ovet The teal breakthrough in home use will come Rosen believes when computers become more friendly by eliminating the keyboard That will mean either voice recognition of the ability to do work dia gramatically and with pictures moving a cursor across the screen It s come a long way Rosen is fond of telling how far the industry has come since he has been looking over its shoulder In late 1977 he was getting good vibes about the future of hand held and digital equipment and wanted to learn more about it The best way to learn was to have a conference he now recalls So he did He invited nine companies to come to the first annual Rosen Personal Computer Forum hoping it wouldn t be the last annual conference It was a good cross section of the industry with some companies that would go out of business in 1978 and some that are still around today About 50 people showed up for the conference less than 20 percent of the number that showed up in 1981 for the fifth annual conference In January of 1980 Rosen began pub lishing the Letter and a similar publica continued on page 24 8OSTON COMPUTER UPDATE I 23 24 BOSTON COMPUTER UPDATE f Rosen continued from page 23 tion on the semiconductor industry as well as consulting with an investment banking house A year later he teamed up with L J Sevin a veteran venture capitalist from Texas Over t
3. Copyright 1982 The Boston Computer Society Inc All rights reserved a a s 1 fey fred T t cw t Om re X a a p ms ne a Ta pp Articles may be reprinted without permission by computer club newsletters if they are not copyrighted by the author Reprints must clearly indicate the author s name the name and address of The Boston Computer Society and a copyright notice Other organizations interested in reprinting material should send requests to the BCS BOSTON COMPUTER UPDATE 1 One Boston Computer Society Patrons Sinclair Research Ltd Sustaining Members David C Crocker Robert 0 Doyle Susan DuGoff Charles H Hood John Lancaster Andrew Lavien John Leslie Katharine Lloyd Theodore Needleman C J Puwaski Benjamin Rosen Nigel Searle Clive Sinclair John J Springfield William Van Aken Eric Weil William Wolfson Corporate Members Action for Boston Community Development American Software Publishing Company Associated Computer Engineers Bell amp Howell Boston Phoenix Brookline Public Schools Business amp Professional Software Byte Publications Capital Market Systems Chelmsford Schools Commodore Compu Ctr Comp uMart Computer Concepts The Computer Store The Computer Tutor Computervision Corp Connecticut Mutual Life Ins Co CPU Computer Corp Curriculum Associates CW Communications ECON First National Bank of Boston FMR Properties Fort Hill Insurance Agency Gillette
4. Today most interaction between ordinary people and computers is medi ated by specially trained computer ter minal operators For example if you want to make an airline hotel or rent a car reservation you have to call one of these specially trained operators buried in some 24 hour a day bunker protected by an 800 number Generally you have to wait a bit and endure a prescribed amount of Muzak until one of the oper ators becomes free to handle your call IXO points out that these operators and the operation of their command centers rank among the most expensive computer peripherals Your having to wait for ser vice is expensive too IXO argues it is becoming increasingly economically worthwhile to eliminate these intermedi aries by distributing to people the means to have a direct dialogue with such computer systems Eliminate the operator Historically people had to go through a specially trained operator to have a people to people telephone conversation Eventually the phone hardware was adapted so that anyone could easily enough perform the operator s job IXO forsees the same for people to computer conversations It admits the barriers to achieving this end are formidable but feels the telecomputer has broken through them by providing an all in one afford able device as friendly and easy to use as a telephone Indeed IXO s makers have made an impressive first cut at Everyperson s terminal By programming som
5. 4 BOSTON COMPUTER UPDATE wotld and a baby s hand George did the slide show on which that ad was based Thanks to George s innovative approach each cover is very different from the last The November December covet for example was an allegory It pictured the IBM Personal Computer hatching at the center of the universe with an apple revolving around it in the distance you can figure out the rest The January February cover was I thought a real tour de force It showed a crystal ball with a personal computer in it light blazing out of it and intense orange hands surrounding it We ve had so many comments and observations about that covet by people who were fascinated by it that I want to do something I know I m not supposed to tell you how it was done Like most BCS projects an incredible amount of planning and work behind the scenes goes into each Update cover The whole process is really interesting Once the cover had been designed a huge project in itself George shot a pic tute of the Boston skyline through a fish eye lense from the top of the Bradford Hotel Using the fish eye lense again he double exposed a computer onto the sky line shot To make this work propetly he had to place the computer in a totally dark toom at the correct angle from the camera with light only on the computer Next he shot hands in different configurations and in six different colors using colored gels until he got the desired ef
6. If you forget your local password you cannot use your telecom puter You can remove the battery and make the telecomputer forget everything But then presumably you would have to call up the IXO Access Center and reinitialize your unit However the Ac cess Center should trap this attempt at reinitialization because it cannot be sure that someone has not stolen your unit and is not just pretending to have forgotten the password How this will be settled re mains unclear This also affects use of your telecom puter by someone else or your use of more than one telecomputer one at work one at home maybe To let someone else use your telecomputer you have to tell them the password sort of like lending your bank teller machine card to some APRIL 1982 one AND telling them your passwotd In the other case where you use two or more telecomputers in different places you will be identified differently from each one Repair setvice and support The telecomputer comes with a limited 90 day warranty and IXO operates an 800 telephone number to handle ques tions and problems Staff answering the 800 line will diagnose problems and determine whether hardware problems exist Users will then have to mail units back to XO for repair In some cases IXO may mail a replacement unit to the user even before the user s unit has ar rived at IXO Major companies buying telecom puters in bulk for integration into their transaction
7. to transmit other than their usual codes Also the ENTER key can be set to trans mit RETURN with or without a following LINEFEED character Parity checking a very low level character transmission error detection scheme can be enabled ot disabled and parity checking if enabl ed can be set to even or odd parity Final ly various display options can be set in cluding eliminating all but the first of consecutive SPACE or RETURN charac ters and clearing the 80 character display buffer on receipt of a RETURN character Telecomputer add ons phone coupler IXO is planning four peripheral devices for its telecomputer The first 1s an acoustic coupler which will be avail able when the telecomputer is introduc ed With the acoustic coupler you can connect the telecomputer to the phone system by coupling a standard tele phone handset into the couplet s cradle This lets you use the telecomputer from any phone without having to find a modular phone jack into which to plug the telecomputer s phone cord This means that you can use the telecomputer from a phone booth Since a lot of telecomputers will find themselves in the hands of traveling salespeople having the coupler is impor tant because they won t have to disman tle a client s telephone in order to use the telecomputer to inquire about delivery dates or to place orders The coupler is expected to cost about 65 in quantity Printer interface IXO is also pl
8. 5 dot wide by 7 dot high matrix and indi vidual characters in the display can be made to flash on and off The display can be hard to read when charactets are scrolling left to right at speeds ap proaching the unit s top speed of 30 characters per second In part the difficulty in reading arises from the fact that the characters do not scroll smoothly but rather jump from one fixed position in the LCD to the next The FAST SLOW and HOLD keys can be us ed to control the rate at which charac ters stream by Moreover liquid crystal displays can be hard to read in certain lighting or outside a fairly narrow range of angles of view and the telecomputer s display is no exception Indeed the display seems to be the telecomputer s weakest point the place where you see most cleatly its com promises to gain portability and achieve minimum price Apparently adding addi tional LCDs to provide a wider display would have meant adding at least 50 to the price for the display plus adding another processor to handle the addi tional display burden The 16 character display is driven by a 4 bit micropro cessor which just barely manages its task as is Display smarts To compensate for the acknowleged limitations of its display the XO designers have built a fair amount of display management smarts into the unit The telecomputer has an 80 character buffer from which it displays It main tains a pointer between the host com puter
9. Access Center Downloading Once you have set your name and pass word you are asked if you want to see a list of the Access Center services Cur rently there is only one real service downloading things into your telecom puter The other Access Center services are simulated services designed to demonstrate the wonderfulness and ap plicability of the telecomputer The real service is called DOWNLOAD When you opt for it you get to download that is store into your telecomputer unit any or all of your name and password log in se quence for Dow Jones log in sequence for The Source and log in sequence for CompuServe Downloading all of these takes about 30 seconds The process is checked for downloading errors and if any are de tected you are given the option of retry ing Presumably as major companies adapt their services to work with the telecomputer the Access Center s DOWNLOAD menu will grow If XYZ Bank begins to offer electronic banking tailored to the telecomputer its log in se quence would then also be added to the Access Center s list With the downloaded information ab sorbed into your telecomputer you can disconnect from the IXO Access Center To do that you just press the PHONE key The telecomputer asks DIS CONNECT to which you can reply by pressing YES or NO keys Pressing the NO key aborts the disconnection and leaves you logged into the Access Center The telecomputer demonstrat
10. Art Director Susan F Shepherd Graphics Sean Kelly Photography Sonny Tarbi George Dillon The Boston Computer Society President Jonathan Rotenberg Vice President Tracy Licklider Treasurer Stewart Alsop II Business Manager Mary E McCann Chief Resource Consultants Torn Lindsley Paul McGary John Sturm Jeff Wheaton Legal Counsel H Adam Sonnenschein Haussermann Davison amp Shattuck Directors Stewart Alsop II Dan Bricklin Mitchell Kapor Tracy Licklider Jonathan Rotenberg Allen Sneider Bonnie Turrentine Apple Boston Gary Hoffer Director Alien Sneider Director Tod Riedel Associate Directc John Thibodeou Assoc Dire Atari User Group Sheldon Buck Coordinator George Erickson Secretary Business Users Group Daniel Bricklin Director Allen Sneider Director John Sturm Assoc Director Educational Resource Exch Bonnie Turrentine Director Beth Lowd Director 80 Boston Sonny Tarbi Director Family User Group Allen Sneider Director IBM User Group Mike Rohrbach Director John Maglio Director North Star User Group Gary Saxton Director Don Hay Editor Osborne User Group Art Capstaff Director STeve Keese Director OSI User Group Arnetha Haynes Director Len Magerrnan Director Jim Loan Director PASCAL User Group Beardsley Ruml Director Dennis Ehn Director PET User Group Dick McKnight Director Jim Yost Director Robotics User Group Ted Blank Director Sinclair User Group Sue Mahoney Director Sou
11. The Boston Computer Society hosts the East Coast premiere of Fortune Systems new 32 16 computer Featuring the 16 bit 68000 microprocessor ex tremely user friendly software and advanced human engineering the 32 16 has been hailed by many analysts as one of the most significant entries to the personal computer marketplace this year The April 28 meeting features David Ahl publisher of Creative Computing speaking on and demonstrating the state of the art in videodisk technology for personal computers Among other things he will be showing Creative Computing s new videodisk adventure game which uses the videodisk of the movie Rollercoaster Both meetings begin at 7 30 p m at New England Life Hall 225 Clarendon Street Boston For a complete list of BCS meetings see page 6 On the cover The new IXO Telecomputer Starting on page 11 Tracy Licklider takes an exhaustive look at the capabilities of this miniature machine and theorizes on how it will affect com munication in the future Photograph by George Dillon Published bimonthly by The Boston Computer Society Inc Three Center Plaza Boston MA 02108 617 367 8080 Subscription free with BCS membership 18 per year We welcome articles news reports and story ideas Members may place free classified ads for noncommercial items equipment wanted for sale etc without charge Commercial businesses and nonmembers please call or write for advertising L information j UE j
12. able to continue using the highest quality paper of any personal computer magazine The cover date and bar code are necessaty for newsstand distribution Sue Gladstone our circulation manager has been working with magazine distributors over the past few months to get Update on newsstands throughout New England up until now it had been selling extremely well on selected newsstands One requirement for newsstand magazine sales is that the magazine must be out long before its cover date Since we were unable to push back our production sched ule any further we simply decided to eliminate the first month in our bimonthly date Now that we have a bar code on the cover you could conceivably buy Update at Stop amp Shop Actually that isn t the real purpose of it Distributors use bar codes to credit their newsstand clients when returns come back from the newsstands In order to make their computers work mote efficiently distributors require pub lishers to deface their otherwise attract ive magazines with these zebra stripes Those amazing covers Speaking of attractive magazines have you noticed our covers lately We are extremely fortunate to have the creative genius of George Dillon working on Boston Computer Update George is what you would call a god of photography His accomplishments are incredibly impres sive fot example do you remember the WANG TV ad that had bands of colored light zooming around computers the
13. educational objectives Although the appeal is cur rently underway and progressing well we have already received two very gener ous contributions which I would like to acknowledge here Sinclair Research the company which produces the ZX81 microcomputer has donated 10 000 to the Society to help expand our Resource Center and network of special interest groups We owe our deepest thanks to Nigel Searle the vice president of Sinclair who originally conceived of the idea of a donation and followed it through to fruition We are also grateful to Clive Sinclair for his support In recognition of its gift we have made Sinclair Research the first Patron of The Jonathan Rotenberg Boston Computer Society It has been a source of ongoing pride to the BCS to have Dan Bricklin as a member and director As many of you know Dan is the creator of VisiCalc the program that has sold more copies and has had more profound effect on small computers than any other in history Recently he was presented the very prestigious Grace Murray Hopper award for the most signif icant contribution to the computer industry by a person under 30 Along with the award came 1000 which Dan has generously donated to the BCS In recog nition of his gift we have made Dan a life time member of the Society I can t tell you how exciting it has been to see such extraordinary support mater ialize for the BCS At last many of the ambitious new projects w
14. 0 robes inc Technology Center Route 309 Montgomeryville Pa 18936 215 628 4960 VISA MasterCard and American Express accepted 20 BOSTON COMPUTER UPDATE IXO s Telecomputer continued from page 18 computer identifier make deducing the scheme numbers and user passwords sufficiently difficult even for people who intercept your telephone line The people at IXO feel that this feature will be quite attractive to security conscious com panies and will increase acceptance of direct people to computer financial tran saction systems Note that the security feature only ap plies to authenticating the user that is sending out an identification message to the host computer All other messages be tween the host computer and telecom puter are NOT encrypted or otherwise scrambled Thus an eavesdropper may not be able to learn your password but he could listen in on your dialogue Among other things this identification scheme will let the XO Access Center ward off what the IXO people call the Apple invaders personal computer ownets who call the Access Center trying to masquerade their personal computers as telecomputers in order to download the assorted log in protocols or otherwise use the IXO services Password forgetters IXO has not decided what it will do with people who forget their local pass wotds the one you must tell to the tele computer so it will let you use it This is a thorny problem
15. ELP and GO BACK as well as simple data input from the user In addition the computer should also sur vive and respond helpfully when the user gives inappropriate input A system designed this way can be us ed at least in theory by anyone even someone with no prior exposure to com puters or the particular service being us ed When the computer asks for input and you do not know how to respond you just press the DONT KNOW or HELP key The computer then gives you instructions on how to respond The YES and NO keys let you respond to questions with a single keypress The GO BACK key lets you go continued on page 16 APRIL 1982 IXO s Telecomputer continued from page 14 back to the most recent previous choice point For example if you were buying a TV set by computer the system might ask you whether you wanted a black and white or color set You might select color and it might then ask for screen size If at that point you realized you really had meant to choose black and white TVs in stead of color ones you could press the GO BACK key to go back to the color or black and white question Standard English Dialogues Of course the catch here is that the re mote computer system has to be program med to implement handling these keys Just because you hold a telecomputer in yout hands does not mean for example you will be relieved from having to make arcane incantations such as T to get the stock price o
16. Inc Magazine Intermetrics J L Hammett Company Home Terminal Systems Inc Kantor Family Institute Laventhol amp Horwath Leading Edge Products Moore Business Center Northeast Expositions North Star Computers Norwood Hospital Labs Personal Software Peter Elliot amp Co Philips Communications Television Systems Price Waterhouse Professional Software Technology Reader s Digest Salem News Shawmut Bank of Boston Harold H Sisson amp Co Software Arts Source Telecomputing Corporation Teradyne Touche Ross amp Co TSE Hardside United States Trust Company Wentworth Institute of Technology Lifetime Members Roger Badertscher Daniel S Bricklin Philip D Estridge H E James Finke Daniel H Fylstra William H Gates Wayne Green Lewis Kornfeld A C Mike Markkula Frank McCullough Seymour Papert Jon Shirley Clive M Sinclair We gratefully acknowledge the following companies for their major contributions of equipment to our Resource Center Apple Computer Commodore Business Machines Sinclair Research Ltd Tandy Radio Shack Id Xerox Corp 2 BOSTON COMPUTER UPDATE The Viervv from Center Plaza With deepest gratitude Toward the end of last year we began in an informal way the Boston Computer Society s first annual fund drive Now that the Society is a tax exempt and charitable public service corporation we felt it was time to approach individuals and corporations to help support the Society s
17. anning a serial RS 232C printer interface for mid 1982 which will let you connect any serial printer to your telecomputer For example you may have an Epson MX 80 hooked up to your Apple or IBM personal computer with this interface you can also use the printer on your telecomputer Quantity price is anticipated to be 65 Note that the tele computer s printer interface is output on ly unhappily you cannot use it to con nect other interesting devices for input such as a bar code reader Tiny printer Even better than the printer interface is IXO s planned tiny palm sized printer Slated for 150 quantity price and avail ability in mid 1982 the printer will have 20 column output at 40 characters per second using dot matrix printing on ther mal paper The prototype printer is about the size of a cassette tape box and con nects to the telecomputer by daisy chain ing it between the telecomputer and the phone line with a short piece of included phone cord There are no other wires or power supplies It weighs well under a pound The printer produces the full ASCII character set upper and lower case and it automatically does word wrap so that words are not chopped ar bitrarily in the middle as they are impos ed on the printer s narrow width Video interface Finally and probably most important IXO will offer a video TV interface so you can hook up the telecomputer to a standard TV set Voila You will have one of
18. d for a new number to try The telecomputer accepts telephone numbers just as one would write them e g 1 617 367 8080 It also allows you to use an at sign in the phone numbers to tell it to wait for a dial tone This feature is designed for use with office Centrex systems that require you to dial 8 or 9 and wait for an outside line before dialing your numbet The order in which connection options are presented to you seems to be deter mined by the order in which they were downloaded from the Access Center Un fortunately there does not seem to be a way to erase an option or to re order continued on page 14 APRIL 1982 IXO s Telecomputer continued from page 12 FB DOR Dak a8 t Ln T Tere Bee B2 mi l L4 pm Noe them Also it seems that you can have on ly one manual access number at a time The current unit has capacity for 8 10 connection options The amount of tele computer memory used by the down loaded information for a particular com puter service is not fixed and varies depending on the complexity of the con nection and log in procedures When you say YES to a connection op tion the telecomputer initiates a call to the service If it s the first time you re calling the service it will ask for the tele phone number to use and from then on it will remember that number The number can be reset however if need be The built in telephone dialer is smart First it tries to make the cal
19. d magazines and files on computer products And when all of these things were in place she cre ated the enormously successful Saturday clinics Now that the Center is fully operative Marjorie has moved on to other projects outside of the BCS For all she has done and given the Society we would like to warmly say thank you Marjorie and we wish you every success in your new endeavors Interested in cable Boston s new cable network has many interesting possibilities for the local personal computer community Besides special programs about computers the network has the capability to down load computer programs and data We feel that the network could do many interesting and useful things for personal computer users and we would like to be actively involved If you re interested get involved too Mitch Kapor a director of the BCS and incidentally the world renowned creator of VisiPlot and VisiTrend is our liaison to the Boston cable network Contact him do The Boston Computer Society Three Center Plaza Boston MA 02108 APRIL 1982 IXO s Remarkable Telecomputer A Small Scale Low Cost Machine Bursting with Surprises The IXO Telecomputer is a remarkable device jam packed with state of the art electronics and with clever ideas from its Cambridge based inventors Bob and Holly Doyle A portable tiny terminal Most obviously the telecomputer is a neatly packaged portable near pocket sized low co
20. e intelli gence into the telecomputer and by inno vation in its keyboard they have made a device usable by even the most computer intimidated The world through a 16 character window The only serious design limitation in the IXO Telecomputer is its display it can only show 16 characters at a time This limitation makes it frustrating to try to read large amounts of information For example you could go crazy trying to skim through the New York Times electronic edition using the telecomputer s narrow display window Because of its tiny win dow the telecomputer will most likely find its niche in transaction applications in which the messages back and forth can be made concise Such applications abound including order entry inventory checking continued on page 12 BOSTON COMPUTER UPDATE 11 IXO s Telecomputer continued from page 11 banking functions bill paying looking up phone numbers and zip codes making travel reservations setting stock prices and exchanging short telegram like mail Initial thrust IXO s initial thrust in marketing will be to quantity purchases major compan ies banks and timesharing services that will adapt their transaction services to cope with the display limitations of the telecomputer and to take advantage of its special keys These transaction system providers will then supply the tele computer to end users as part of the service offered the device s cost will be bundled in
21. echnical innovation the big breakthrough will come Everything we ve seen so fat ate just variations on the old technology he says We ve added memory We ve made them better in some respects But nothing is really new How does the industry grow into the 1990s After sitting back a moment Rosen answers his own question They have to become a lot simpler and ultimately cheaper You have to make a product that you just turn it on and the lay person knows how to use it You have to open the product up to more than just the elite market APRIL 1982
22. egment but currently at higher price points One also has to wonder what the telephone company may be planning in the way of a low cost terminal With all the energy of invention cram med into it one has to feel that the IXO Telecomputer as the data equivalent of the telephone will have a significant im pact on people to computet communica tion APRIL 1982 BOSTON COMPUTER UPDATE 21 The Micro World s Foremost Analyst Talks About Himself and the Industry NEW YORK You think you are alone with Ben Rosen in his 27th floor office in the Pan American Building looking out over Park Avenue as the cabs turn their lights on for the dusk rush hour Suddenly there 1s another voice in the room It s 4 00 p m says the voice syn thesis digital clock on Rosen s desk Rosen chuckles a little The little chuckle is a trademark a barometer of where the dis cussion is leading him or how startled a visitor is by one of his little toys Rosen has good reason to chuckle After nearly 20 years as an electronics analyst in an investment banking firm he gave it all up to go independent and in just a few short years has become one of the gurus of the microcomputer field His Rosen Letter published regularly every once in a while has become a must read for people in the industry and will become bi weekly later this year Not a newsletter the Rosen Letter is a personal guided tour through the wide and sometimes wild world of wha
23. es good human engineering by requiring you to confirm with a push of the YES or NO key major actions that would dramatically alter your connection state After disconnecting you have an ini tialized telecomputer You can turn it off by pressing the ON OFF key Again the telecomputer checks to see that you real ly mean to turn it off by asking TURN OFF You reply by pressing the YES or NO key Note that when the telecomputer is turned off its memory remains turned on it is powered by the on board battery Thus the telecomputer will not lose the downloaded information even though you turn the unit off Calling up a computer IXO s single button access Subsequently when you turn on the IXO Telecomputer you will be greeted with HI and your name and asked for your password Then you will be pre sented one by one with connection op tions You respond by pressing the YES key to elect to connect to the service whose name is currently shown in the display or by pressing the NO key to skip to the next service The IXO Access Center is the next to last option followed by MANUAL ACCESS which lets you enter any phone number to call The tele computer remembers the last number you gave for manual access and will automatically try it if you press the YES key at the MANUAL ACCESS prompt You can abort the calling of a previously entered manual access number by press ing NO during the dialing and then you will be aske
24. f AT amp T from Dow Jones service Indeed none of the major commercial services e g Dow Jones CompuServe The Source is currently programmed to handle these special keys Nevertheless XO is proposing these as the IXO Standard English Dialogues a mouthful of a phrase that IXO is trademarking IXO hopes that they will be adopted as an industry standard These special keys actually send two characters to the remote computer the second of the two characters is always the RETURN character YES sends a Y followed by a RETURN not surprisingly NO sends an N HELP DONT KNOW and GO BACK send a question matk an exclamation point and an up arrow character respectively Whether these conventions these particular characters followed by RETURN are adopted widely remains to be seen Nevertheless new systems designed specifically to be ac cessed from telecomputers will certainly be able to exploit these keys and to create friendly user interfaces especial ly for inexperienced users Color coded keys Another nice feature 1s that the tele computer s keys are color coded The or dinary keys letters digits punctuation 16 BOSTON COMPUTER UPDATE are white The PHONE key is a light blue The YES key is green for GO one sup poses the NO key is red for STOP The ENTER key it sends a RETURN character is yellow Indeed the NO ENTER and YES keys are lined up on the tight edge in a RED YELLOW GREEN traffic light
25. fect Once he had acceptable hands and crystal ball shots he back projected the crystal ball shot onto a screen and set up a purple laser in back of the screen He photo eraphed the screen through an eight pointed star filter to produce the blazing light effect Finally he projected the hands onto the screen and double exposed them around the ball Kind of incredible eh I was in awe for a while when I learned how he did it It s wonderful having the opportunity to work with such extraordinarily creative people as George Dillon The rest of our graphics and photography staff are equally inspirational Sonny Tarbi who is responsible for most of the photography inside Update Sue Shepherd the Update s art director Lee Doliber and Lyn Skeffington the designers of the BCS identity system and Sean Kelly our very talented cartoonist Hats off to Marjorie About a year ago Marjorie Elias came along to transform a void into The Boston Computer Society s Computer Resource Center Virtually single handedly she succeeded marvelously creating a rich source of information for users and prospective purchasers of personal computers Specifically she set up the Center and worked closely with the personal com puter manufacturers to get the bank of computers we now have available She aggressively sought after software com panies to create and expand our software library She put together the Center s extensive library of books an
26. haracters stream across the LCD display Each key generates a reinforcing tone that makes it sound like you are slowing down or speeding up things When you slow things down to the slowest or speed them up to the fastest the keys no longer emit a tone this lets you know you have reached the limit On the right of the spacebar are the CLR CHAR clear character and CLR EN TR clear entry keys These erase the last character you typed or all characters you have typed since you last pressed the ENTER key They generate tones suggestive in length of how much you are erasing The last key is the ON OFF key also a dark blue Pressing the ON OFF key while the telecomputer is on causes it to ask TURN OFF to confirm that you really want to turn it off Anything besides a YES response causes it to ig note the ON OFF keypress For most the audio feedback from key presses will be a reassuring confirmation that the right things are happening However for some it will be irritating For example if you are using your tele computer to read your mail in bed with someone sleeping next to you you will probably be told to go play arcade games somewhere else You can turn off the beeps by pressing the CTRL and HOLD keys together The display The telecomputer s liquid crystal display can show 16 characters at a time It displays only uppercase characters even though the unit can send lowercase letters The characters are formed in a
27. he past year Sevin and Rosen raised 25 million which they will begin parceling out to would be makers of computer systems electronics software and automation equipment in the neat future Rosen s desk has two stacks of proposals and a cupboard behind the desk has more stacks Going through each one carefully is such a drain on time that Rosen is now seeking writers for his two letters and for a third he hopes to start sometime in 1982 He plans to expand the publishing business by two letters a year starting in 1983 Although he loves the idea of the personal letter from him to his readers Rosen feels that after two years of writing the letter it is time to shift gears personally Consequently he will devote much of his time this year to the venture capital business The thing that s really stimulating about reading these proposals is that every one of these companies is pursuing something on the forefront of the industry I m constantly being exposed to the future Rosen says with boyish enthusiasm A window on the future To Rosen there are two big questions that dominate the microcomputer scene and will do so for the coming decade One is what impact the Japanese will have in this country Recently the Japanese have dominated their own market Rosen believes the Japanese will come into the American market in a big way in the next year or two The other major question on his mind is when and from where the oral t
28. hich we had talked about undertaking but which were either too costly or impractical for the Society s limited resources are now becoming realistic possibilities We are very grateful to Sinclair and Dan Bricklin continued on page 4 Nigel Searle of Sinclair presents Jonathan Rotenberg with the check for 10 000 APRIL 1982 The View from Center Plaza continued from page 2 for their support and hope they will be an inspiration to many other individuals and companies to make similar contributions What s going on here If you follow Boston Computer Update you may have noticed three very subtle changes in this issue the paper it is printed on is slightly different from past issues the issue date is April rather than March April and there s an ugly looking bat code on the cover All three of these changes reflect a major transition for Update Between January February and this issue our circulation has grown from 5 000 to 10 000 and we have begun extensive newsstand distribution throughout New England The new paper reflects the fact that Update is now being printed on a web rather than sheet fed printing press The web process uses huge rolls of paper in stead of cut sheets and is less expensive than sheet fed b t can only be used with quantities of about 10 000 and more As a result we are able to print Update at a significantly lower cost per copy despite rapidly increasing printing costs We re also
29. ing scheme coupled with the large size of the seed number and tele continued on page 20 APRIL 1982 THE FUTURE OF PERSONAL COMPUTERS Leen i A Nigel Searle Vice President Sinclair Research Ltd William H Gates President Microsoft H E James Finke President Commodore International Ltd Peter N Rosenthal Director of Business Planning Atari Jon Shirley Vice President Radio Shack Philip D Estridge Director IBM Personal Computer A C Mike Markkula President Apple Computer Inc Moderated by Jonathan Rotenberg President The Boston Computer Society A 2V2 hour cassette tape of the extraordinary Forum on the Future of Personal Computers presented by The Boston Computer Society and the world s leading authorities on personal computers on October 15 1981 1s available now for 25 from The Boston Computer Society Three Center Plaza Boston Mass 02108 617 367 8080 Cash check MasterCard and VISA accepted O0009 hne Boston Computer Society Okidata Printers Make Good Computer Systems Better Okidata quality and reliability have been proven in thousands of computer room installations world wide Don t settle torr less Okidata Slimline and Microline Series printers cover the full range from1 80 CPS to 400 LPM professional quality printers that produce professional looking copy and graphics Microline 80 Microline 82A Microline 83A Slimline 125 Slimline 160 NEC5510 with tractor 2700 0
30. keys are rather crammed together but what can you ex pect for a unit with a surface that is 7 in ches across by 4 inches front to back Happily IXO has abandoned the mem brane style keyboard of earlier proto types The telecomputer now has a key stroke keyboard Keypress might be a better word than keystroke because the feeling from pressing a key is a bit squishy and not the firm resistance you get from Selectric typewriters or most conventional computer terminals such as Digital s VT100 or personal computers such as IBM s The telecom puter beeps on each keystroke this helps offset any uncertainty about whether a keystroke registered The keys are laid out typewriter style for the most part however there is only one having been sacrificed for a YES key You can key 95 ASCII character codes from the keyboard It is not clear how you key a NUL character Normally the keyboard issues only capital letters but by pressing the SHIFT and CTRL keys together you can put the keyboard into lowercase mode In this mode a LOWER CASE annunciator is turned on along the top of the LCD display Let ters keyed without pressing the SHIFT key at the same time are then sent as lower case to the remote computer They still are displayed in the telecomputer display as uppercase which is unfor tunate There are eight characters that can be keyed but are not shown on the keyboard They are left and right curly brace lef
31. l assuming touchtone dialing If that fails it will switch to pulse dialing The unit is fixed at a speed of 30 characters per second 300 baud origi nate modem frequencies and full duplex When it detects a carrier signal from the called service it turns on a small ON LINE annunciator along the top of the LCD display The telecomputer will then follow the downloaded log in se quence it has stored for the service ex cept for manual access How much the telecomputer actually does for you in connecting to a computer vaties from service to service In the case of a direct call to a CompuServe local telephone number all the telecomputer does is send a single control C character to CompuServe In the case of Dow Jones the telecomputer actually negotiates with the data network Telenet or Tymnet gets some character processing options and sends the correct character se quence to connect you to the Dow Jones service In these cases the telecomputer does not actually log you in it just gets you to the point in the log in process where you have to give your account number and or password There currently seems to be no way to amend the log in sequence stored in the telecomputer with your ac count number or password so that it could actually log you all the way into the remote computer system Once you are 14 BOSTON COMPUTER UPDATE logged in you interact with the remote computer system the same way you would from an
32. message and the user response It will only begin to scroll the host message off to the left when the user response begins to bump into the host message Of coutse CLR CHAR and CLR ENTR only erase characters from the user response The REPT key redisplays from the 80 character buffer scrolling the char acters from that buffer across the dis play until the telecomputer gets back to continued on page 18 APRIL 1982 IXO s Telecomputer continued from page 16 ur e ER ES Je NS I the display state at the time when the REPT key was pressed You can press the HOLD key during redisplay to freeze a portion of the buffered text on the dis play Also the telecomputer can receive escape sequences from the host com putet to clear the buffer or to enable kinetic punctuation mode In this mode the display pauses and beeps on display of a comma period or other punctuation followed by a space or return charactet Flow control The telecomputer sends the fairly stan dard XOFF and XON control characters to the host computer to tell it to stop and to restart sending Any computer you plan to use with the telecomputer must suppott this stop start protocol or else you will lose pieces of the information transmitted Indeed the host computer not only must support this protocol but must also stop sending within 32 charac ters of the telecomputer s sending an XOFF code The telecomputer used for this review lost characters when c
33. on nected to a Prime 850 computer because the Prime could take as many as 64 characters to skid to a stop after the telecomputer sent an XOFF Downloaded protocols The log in sequences or protocols that ate downloaded from the IXO Access Center consist of six things host com puter name computer telephone number log in procedure reprogramming of key board functions parity setting and display options The computer name is simply what the telecomputer displays when it scrolls through its repertoire of services it knows how to call The telephone number may be direct to the host computer or it may be a local number of a data network such as Telenet or Tymnet The log in procedure is written in a special lan guage which is interpreted by the tele computer Some of the kinds of things that can be specified in this language 18 BOSTON COMPUTER UPDATE are that the telecomputer wait till it gets a particular character that the telecom puter transmit a fixed text message or that the telecomputer wait for a specified amount of time The interpreted language is fancy enough that the telecomputer can be in structed to follow different log in pro cedures depending on whether it ac cesses the host computer through a net work or directly It can differentiate be tween access via Tymnet and Telenet based on what character stream the net work sends or does not send to the telecomputer Keyboard keys can be reprogrammed
34. pattern The DONT KNOW and HELP keys are both orange The keys also make distinctive tones The ordinaty keys make one beep The YES key makes two tones in a rising se quence and the NO key makes two tones in a falling sequence HELP and DONT KNOW make the same three tone se quence ENTER makes another three tone sequence and GO BACK makes still another two tone sequence The computerish keys BREAK ESCAPE and CONTROL have been rele gated to a gray colot and grouped on the left side of the keyboard The BREAK key makes a very nice thrilling sound The BREAK key can be programmed to send either control C control P or a 250 millisecond line interruption The ESCAPE key sends an ASCII escape code and CONTROL is pressed in conjunction with other keys to generate ASCII control codes or certain characters not shown on the keyboard such as a cutly brace Local function keys Along the bottom of the keyboard flanking a rather narrow spacebar are dark blue keys which perform local func tions Rather oddly the GO BACK key is mixed in with these both in color and position The HOLD key freezes the LCD display It also turns on an ON HOLD an nunciator along the top of the display The telecomputer ticks when it in ON HOLD this serves as a nice reminder that time is ticking away and that if nothing seems to be happening it is because you put things on hold The SLOW and FAST keys slow down and speed up the rate at which c
35. rce Micronet Group Rick Kane Director APRIL 1982 COMING UP COMPUTER UPDATE CONTENTS THE VIEW FROM CENTER PLAZA by Jonathan Rotenberg eee 2 COMMENTARY POOR TIMING FOR A BOLD STROKE by Jack Star 3 ANNOUNCEMENTS by Mary E McCann sessist nema bissosniceupvesisvsanbexoubeotincasanosbaesavsouaiwengens 6 OFF THE GRAPEVINE eene 8 IXO S REMARKABLE TELECOMPUTER by Tracy R Licklider esses 11 A CONVERSATION WITH BEN ROSEN by Jon Zonderman eese 23 COMPUTERS IN BUSINESS BUYING A PAYROLL SYSTEM ya Ra ROUT oE 7 NN 0n 26 THE WORLD OF ROBOTICS by Ted Blank eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee nennen nennen 27 CERC NEV P c 35 COMPUTERS AND THE LAW UNDERSTANDING COMPUTER WARRANTIES picstepbenm x HR terse eres ete dite M EO tte ne Ma HON Aina ME SIMI MERCI SUM Me 36 COMPUTER BULLETIN BOARDS by Lawrence Woods eese eee 41 CLASSIFIED ADS c 45 PORTIA I QUEEN OF THE ROBOTS by Jack Stat ettet 49 HOW ONE MANUFACTURER FOUND HAPPINESS ON THE EAST COAST By Miny E IM Ga o ouais pads ei opa a E RAN R TUA ana d DUUM Peu cp pa Ub D pPN dM 51 BOOK REVIEW by Dour COODOE s irme oceoaeelius nsn RU n es RUE aa aA an aba fpe ER e E 55 March 24 April 28 At its March 24 meeting
36. st computer terminal It con tains a phone dialer a telephone interface which plugs directly into a phone line a 16 character liquid crystal display LCD a full typewriter style keyboard memory a modular phone jack an RS 232 jack two microprocessors and a battery All of this hardware is crammed into a unit that weighs about a pound and a quarter on my kitchen food scale and measures slightly smaller than your average paperback detective novel IXO plans a wholesale price for quantity orders of 1000 or more units between 300 and 365 the retail price will turn out to be in the 550 to 600 range The telecomputer should be available at least IXO s new telecomputer system features full keyboard display built in modem phone dialer two microprocessors and numerous special features all in a pocket sized package by Tracy Robnett Licklider in wholesale quantities by the time this article reaches print And much more IXO sees its telecomputer as much more than just a portable computer terminal They see it as the data equivalent of the telephone the telecomputer will be the desktop device for direct people to com puter communications just as the phone is the analogous device for people to people communications While this is a rather ambitious view IXO presents a very plausible case that economics will cause the widespread adoption of tele computer like direct people to computer communications devices
37. systems and services will presumably stock spares as well Thus for example if you obtain a unit from your bank as part of a bundled service you will probably deal with the bank for repair or replacement Conclusion IXO has staked out the low price point end of the portable terminal market with a very nice unit How successful it will be is hard to say because of the newness of this marketplace If it wins a few adop tions by major companies it will certain ly do well However it seems IXO may be overfocused on quantity sales initially and may miss substantial early sales to computer initiated people hungry for an unobtrusive portable terminal people tired of lugging around a Texas Instru ments 745 or breaking their backs with an Osborne 1 There is the obvious threat to IXO of a Japanese knockoff a lower priced imita tion The current telecomputer is made from off the shelf components and it is completely possible that IXO could reduce the unit price by 100 by having someone make them a customized chip in tegrating most of the telecomputet s functions Besides lowering the price IXO can use its smart display manage ment and log in firmware as a barrier against simple hardware copiers Nevertheless there 1s competition from handheld computers that have or could add communications capability from briefcase computers and from com panies like Novation Lexicon and Axlon that are essentially in the same market s
38. t and right square bracket underscore vertical bar backslash and accent ague These are keyed by pressing the CTRL key and another key The tele computer designers have associated these characters the ones not shown on the keyboard mnemonically with similar keys that are shown For example a backslash character is generated when you press the CTRL and slash keys at the same time Special keys Much of the telecomputer s innovation is manifested in its special keys The most important are the PHONE YES NO DONT KNOW HELP and GO BACK keys The PHONE key has a picture of a telephone handset on it Apparently the IXO marketing people felt that having a picture of a telephone handset on the PHONE key would help people realize that the telecomputer has a phone built into it actually a dialer and a modem In any case pressing the PHONE key does one of two things if you are currently connected to a computer the telecom puter asks you if you want to disconnect 1f you are currently not connected to any thing the telecomputer asks you to enter the number of the computer you want to call Martin s dialogues The other special keys YES NO etc designed to simplify the user s dialogue with computers implement a theory put forth by James Martin Mar tin s thesis is that computer systems should be programmed so that at every point at which input is required from the user a system should accept YES NO DONT KNOW H
39. t some day may become the largest consumer electronics market in the country While the rest of the economy is flag ging sliding down the semantic ladder from recession into depression Rosen sees nothing but growth ahead for the microcomputer industry You cannot find someone that isn t APRIL 1982 growing the silver haired Rosen says softly It won t stop until it has pene trated a meaningful part of the economy The home market has barely been touched and the business market is far from saturated The home business debate Rosen believes 1982 will begin to see the settling of the personal Wd ERI argument Originally everyone made a pass for the home market When they found out there wasn t much there in terms of need or good applications most companies went towatd business While most companies have kept their lower end market items available for family use new products in the past couple of years have been aimed at busi ness and all of the micro systems put out by mainframe and minicomputer compa nies IBM Wang etc have been aimed at the business user Most companies ate making another run at the home Rosen says Some people think information services will be the thing that opens the home matket I m a little dubious Rosen sees educational applications as a better road into the home if there s good software But the days of balance your checkbook and file your recipes on your personal
40. the least expensive most portable videotex terminals available The video interface will sell for 150 in quantity be available in mid 1982 and connect in the same manner as the tiny printer It is roughly the same size as the printer box IXO has not yet decided how many lines by how many characters the video inter face will offer The prototype demon strated a format of 32 characters by 16 lines The video interface also does wotd wrap to avoid chopping up words at bitrarily Security One of the telecomputer s most invisi ble features 1s its scheme for user au thentication The general notion behind authentication 1s to maximize the likeli hood that the person calling a computer is who he claims to be Today virtually all computer systems including bank automated teller machines simply use passwotds As direct people to computer access increases and as more becomes at stake in those communications simple passwotd schemes will probably not suf fice To help improve upon today s current schemes the telecomputer has been pro grammed to identify itself upon inquiry receipt of the ENQ control code from the called computer The identification sent back to the computer is a complex scrambling of three things a seed number sent by the host computer a uni que identifier hard wired actually car ried in a programmable read only memoty into each telecomputer and the local password the user saves The com plex scrambl
41. tion for you When the battery begins to rim low a LOW BATT annunciator turns on along the top of the LCD display Initialization the IXO Access Center Once you plug in both ends of the phone cord you re ready to go The first thing every telecomputer owner will do is call and log into the IXO Access Center computer in order to initialize the tele computer When you turn the telecom puter on for the first time by pressing the ON OFF key the display will show HI IXO ACCESS CENTER You answer this by pressing the YES key It will then dial the IXO Access Center computer and log in fot you This is what the prototype did the typewritten instructions suggest the uset may be asked to key in the Access Center telephone number rather than ex pect the unit to know it Once logged into the Access Center you set your name and password Thereafter at every power up the telecomputer will greet you by your name e g HI TRACY It will then ask for yout password If you can t supply the passwotd you can t do anything with the telecomputer Don t forget your pass wotd There seems to be no way to disable the password checking Actu ally there 1s a rather desperate way remove the battery while the telecom puter is not connected to a phone line This removes all power and makes the telecomputer forget everything it ever knew particulatly your passwotd but also all the downloaded information it received from the
42. to the overall cost of the setvice No manual needed The production prototype telecom putet received for review did not come with a user manual although one is being prepared Three typewritten pages of instructions did accompany the unit and it is testimony to how easy the device is to use that it took only about five minutes most of that spend unpacking to get online to a computer The telecomputer comes in a small box accompanied by a telephone cord with modular plugs at both ends You stick one plug into the back of the telecomputer the other plug goes to your telephone wall outlet EXO sells separately an adap ter to connect the modular plug to office phones that use a 25 pin connector If you do not happen to have a phone line instal lation that accepts modular plugs you can buy adapters at any Radio Shack store ot have the phone company install one for an exotbitant fee Flat battery In the back of the telecomputer there is a small snap open compartment for the unit s battery It uses the new Polaroid flat battery which should power the unit for two years The battery comes install ed In fact the battery is drawn on only when the unit is not connected to the phone line When connected the telecom 12 BOSTON COMPUTER UPDATE puter is powered from the phone line itself The battery serves mainly to power the CMOS low power memory which stores log in sequences phone numbers and other customizing informa
43. y other terminal IXO s marketing people are trade marking IXO Single Button Access to describe the telecomputer s simplified scheme for accessing computer setvices Presumably the single button is the YES key you press to elect a particular ser vice as you scroll through those the tele computer knows how to call In any case the telecomputer s ability to hide all the details of dialing the computer service and connecting through networks is a major step in making access to com puters easy and unobtrusive for people Audio feedback in dialing One of the telecomputer s most notice able features is its audio feedback The telecomputer squawks when it starts to dial clicks for each digit dialed and then rings or buzzes busy when the call reaches its destination When the remote computer system actually establishes the connection you hear the reassuring high pitched carrier frequency tone This kind of feedback 1s essential so you can diagnose situations in which you fail to connect with the service you are dialing It may be busy or you may have entered the wrong phone number The keyboard A lot of human engineering and design thought has obviously gone into the key board The telecomputer has 61 keys most of which are square and measure 3 8ths of an inch on a side The size is smallish but acceptable by compatison the keys on Digital s popular VT100 ter minal are roughly 1 2 an inch on a side The telecomputer s
Download Pdf Manuals
Related Search