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You The Apple Ile Business System includes 64K computer with can even lease with an option to buy. extended 80-column card, 2 disk drives, monitor and Apple Dot i as : Matrix Printer, App Either way, you're in business, The most personal computer @appic | gepp'e CASTLEGAR COMPUTERS LTD. 5 HOURS: Tuesday to Saturday — 11a.m.-5p.m. 619 Columbia Ave. 365-3734 al ° For a mortga © Debt consolidation © Car insurance ® Home improvements mas oH EUR ae November 9, 1983 We Have Funds Available A Kootenay Savings CASTLEGAR: 365-3375. Across from Post Office SOUTH SLOCAN: 359-7221. Highway 3A Historic Ghost Town | ‘Computer column By MICHAEL FUHRMANN The Canadian Press Home computers may develop into the next consumer craze, but they're baffling machines to most people. How do they perform their amazing feats? A good way to find out, whether you're planning to buy one or just curious about these technological marvels, is to read one of the dozens of computer books available in book stores and libraries. They range from dry-as-dust textbooks written by computer scientists to jaunty introductions by enthusiastic amateurs. Here are three that may be useful. — CasNews Photos by Ron Norman Without Me You're Nothing — The Essential Guide to Home Computers. By Frank Herbert, with Max Barnard. (Pocket Books. $6.95 paperback). 4 The “me” in the title doesn’t refer to the computer but to the human being whose brains are necessary to program the machine to make it run. The subtitle is the first in a long series of grandiose and questionable claims. Useful and highly readable the book may be, but hardly “eseential.” . Herbert, author of many popular science fiction novels, is a firm believer in the importance of computer literacy. In fact his message verges on the apocalyptic: “The information age is upon us,” and computers may be our “instruments of survival.” Herbert is not given to understatement. “Before long it will at least be a matter of self-defence for you to have your own computer and be able to use it,” he claims. “You are already being taken advantage of by people with computers. You will not be able to meet the challenge or keep up with other changes unless you acquire a computer yourself.” Life is a great competition, a race in which the winning edge is provided by, what else, computer literacy: “Whoever moves first will be out in front and gaining speed faster than anyone coming up from behind.” Despite the overblown urgency of many of Herbert's statements, this is an entertaining book. And some readers may find practical use for two programs he offers in the BASIC language: A car maintenance program and a mortgage payment program. The Analytical Engine: Computers — Past, Present and Future, By Jeremy Bernstein. (Morrow. $4.95 paperback), - This book, first released in the early '60s and revised in 1981, originally was published as a series of articles in The New Yorker magazine when computers were in their infancy. 3 “Adolescents now know more about programming than most scientists knew when I wrote my articles,” Bernstein says ina preface to the second edition. Starting with the abacus in 450 BC, Bernstein surveys the history of computing devices with spotlights on Blaise Pascal's mechanical adding machine of 1642 and the pioneering role of English mathematician Charles Babbage. “Babbage's Analytical Engine, a grand Victorian conception which was never built, was to have performed about 60 additions a minute. “All the operating were mechanical,” Bernstein writes, “and thus would involve the machinations of a vast collection of gears and cransk, which presumably were to be run on steam power.” A modern home computer, available for a few hundred dollars, is a far ery from the Analytical Engine, but also “has more computing capacity than the first large electronic computer, ENIAC (built in 1946). It is 20 times faster, has a larger memory (and) consumes the power ofa light bulb rather than that of a locomotive.” Intelligent and smoothly written, Bernstein's book stands up well today. The Computer Book. By Robin Bradbeer, Peter De Bono and Peter Laurie. (BBC. $16.95 paperback). Published by the British Broadcasting Corp. in 1982 to accompany a TV series on computers, this book is written for a wide audience in a breezy, entertaining style. As an introduction to computers it is as painless as possible, with attractive typography and illustrations on nearly every page. More than most beginner's books, this one addresses the computer's impact on society, showing how computers are used to predict the weather, control aircraft jet engines, monitor air traffic control and read bar codes on products at supermarkets. The authors answer at the most basic level such questions as: What do computers do, how do they work, and where is the technology taking us. It’s less a practical handbook (although an elementary discussion of programming in BASIC is provided) than a general, clearly written essay on the subject. The only British slant I could detect appears in a brief discussion of Prestel, a large British central computer leased out to private information providers or databanks. Equivalent or related systems are already in place in Canada and the U.S., so the discussion is not wasted on North American readers.