Plugging In Everyman

Cheap computers that balance checkbooks and water lawns

Michael Mastrangelo, 40, a Manhattan audiovisual consultant, has a servant who keeps the temperature and humidity in his home at just the levels he demands, puts his favorite music on the stereo as he pulls into the driveway, and phones him at the office in case of fire or burglary. If Mastrangelo wanted, his major-domo could also wake him in the morning, make him a cup of tea, brief him on the day's business appointments as he has breakfast, remind him that the car needs an oil change and, after he drives off, water the lawn, and roast a turkey dinner for twelve.

Where did Mastrangelo get help like that these days? The answer: from a custom-built household computer and some auxiliary gadgets. The computer cost him $11,000 six years ago, but with advances in technology the same hardware today would be only $4,000, and some new models are as compact and inexpensive as a good color TV set. The age of the home computer (or microcomputer, as it is often called) is at hand.

Since Micro Instrumentation & Telemetry Systems Inc. of Albuquerque 2 1/2 years ago introduced its Altair 8800, a 250,000-calculations-per-second computer that retails for $1,070, some 30 other manufacturers have begun producing similar equipment. Tandy Corp. next week will begin delivering a $600 microcomputer (only $399 if hooked up to one's own viewing screen) to the firm's 6,756 Radio Shack stores. Heath Co., the nation's largest producer of build-it-yourself electronic gadgets, is selling a $1,240 Heathkit and will introduce a souped-up $2,500 model in November. Such industrial giants as Timex and Texas Instruments are also said to be pondering a move into home computers, and Sears, Montgomery Ward and a number of other large chains are considering selling them. "Some day soon every home will have a computer," says Byron Kirkwood, a Dallas microcomputer retailer. "It will be as standard as a toilet."

A slight exaggeration, perhaps. But already some 50,000 microcomputers have been sold, largely for home use, and industry analysts predict sales of three times that many in the next year alone. Some 500 retail outlets have opened in the past couple of years to sell and service microcomputers--and serve as hangouts for the growing legions of home-computer nuts, or "hackers," as they call themselves. For further companionship, hackers have formed at least 150 computer clubs across the country and launched a dozen home-computer magazines. Says Theodor Nelson, author of a book called Computer Lib: "The lid is off. There's going to be an avalanche as there was with hifi, calculators and CB radio."

Like their big brothers in business and government, microcomputers have a central processing unit to do the thinking, an input-output device (typically an electric typewriter connected to a video display screen) for giving instructions and receiving answers, and a memory for storing information. A microcomputer can easily perform such sedentary chores as keeping track of an investment portfolio, maintaining an up-to-date Christmas card list, collating menus or entertaining the kids with a vast Olympiad of electronic games, from TV tennis to Star Trek (destroy the Klingons before they capture the starship Enterprise). Other tasks--reporting on water seepage in the basement, watering the lawn when it reaches a given aridity, locking the front door at night --require the addition of various switches, sensors and motors that can send a house-proud hacker's outlay soaring. Says James Warren, a California microcomputer consultant: "You keep adding components until you exceed your yearly income."

So far the hardware is more easily available than the software or readymade programs telling the computer what to do. But addicts nevertheless manage to find plenty of applications for their new toys. Robert Goodyear, 62, a Framingham, Mass., physicist, uses his computer to tap out and edit his personal correspondence. Manhattan Physician Joseph J. Sanger cross-indexes his medical journals to provide him with instant, tailor-made refresher courses on any disease he asks for. Ham Radio Operator Irving Osser of Beverly Hills has programmed his computer to keep a log of the people he talks to on his radio and to translate Morse code into a typewritten message. Boston Pediatrician Lawrence Reiner uses his machine to relax by playing TV games with his children. Robert Phillips, president of Gimix Inc., a Chicago firm that computerizes entire households, has installed terminals in every room of his Chicago apartment. He uses them to dim and brighten his lights, tune his stereo, turn his television on and off, even to open and close his drapes.

For many household operations, however, microcomputers are clearly inferior to simpler and less expensive devices. Like fingers. Michael Mastrangelo finds it easier to make his own tea than program a computer for the task. Says David Korman, who has an IMSAI 8080 in his Belmont, Mass., apartment: "I tried doing my checkbook on it. It's a lot faster by hand." And even though prices have dropped, microcomputers remain complicated devices that require long hours of study to use properly. When Robert Phillips let his sister give a party in his computerized Chicago apartment, he dutifully left a long list of instructions. Not long enough. Someone accidentally hit a button that killed all the power, reducing the puzzled guests to carrying candles. "The hard part," says Phillips, "is making the computer compatible with people."

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