🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1928@silver.bacs.indiana.edu>, stowe@silver.bacs.indiana.edu (holly) writes:
> 
> A friend of mine just read this to me.  I thought I should share it.
> I won't make any comments one way or another.
> 
> 
> From _Byte_, July, 1988...
>  
> Part of the problem is that "computers are not powerful enough to be used
> at home for anything productive," says Neil Harris, Director of Product
> Marketing at Atari.  "I think the ST and the Amiga are in the right 
> direction, but we're still not there yet."  Harris also blames the industry
> press for not covering the Atari machines enough.

There was a long panel discussion held at West Coast Computer Faire in March.
My talk centered on the reasons why computers in the home had not caught on
to the big extent expected in the earlier part of the decade -- people
rarely use the computer for purposes like personal finance, for example.

I postulated that advances in technology would change this.  For example,
imagine a scanner which could read text and put it into the appropriate
place in a database.  So you could feed in your checkbook and it would
create your budget information automatically.  With faster processors,
better AI software, and cheaper scanners (all reasonable to expect within
the next few years) this could be a real product.

Without this, home finance is a painful operation, involving many hours of
drudgery keying in the information.

Office computing has taken off because the office has a labor force
available to handle this kind of job.  The home needs more powerful
technology.

<sigh>  Pick on the press and see where it gets you...

--->Neil

-- 
Neil Harris, Director of Product Marketing

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