Computer

New computer programs dealing with Homer's Odyssey and Shakespeare's Hamlet soon will be added to the resources of the New Hope-Solebury School District. The programs are included in a $45,000 package of computer-related spending approved Monday by the school board. The district will acquire eight new IBM computer terminals for the math- science lab at the high school and one Macintosh computer for the elementary school. It is buying software dealing with, among other subjects, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Christopher Columbus and Shakespeare's plays.

Sony Corp. yesterday unveiled a book-sized portable computer with no keyboard that can read letters handwritten on its screen in English or Japanese. Sony described the PalmTop PTC-500 as a significant breakthrough that could make personal computers as common as Walkman portable stereos. "This machine has historical significance," said Toshi Doi, director of Sony's microcomputer group. "The product is targeted for a far wider range of potential users in the coming era of a computer for everyone.

You say Cmdr. Data, that walking, talking, thinking android with a neuron computer for a brain on Star Trek: The Next Generation is only fiction? Well, OK, he is . . . for now. But watch out. There is a neuron computer at the University of Pennsylvania that does a lot of dazzling Data-like - make that, human-like - tricks. It can recognize images and sounds and generalize about them, just as you do when you recognize a friend's face - or voice - and say hello. Sure, you can run into somebody who looks or sounds so much like your friend, you're mistaken.

Once, while among a group of knowledgeable personal-computer types who were observing a demonstration of some new software, I innocently asked, "What's the difference between a data base and a spreadsheet?" And while my naive query and obvious computer illiteracy drew some snooty raised eyebrows, a kindly college kid (wearing a T-shirt with a drawing of a vampire saying "I want a byte") took me aside and explained, in simple English, the answer to my very basic question. I wish to report that I have since become savvy.

Edward Godfrey, 32, sat before his Gold Star PC in the Gloucester County College computer laboratory in Deptford and struck a command key. The computer gurgled. In quick succession, Godfrey typed a series of strokes: A/ ENTER. A/1 - ACCOUNTING PROGRAM, the computer wrote on the screen. And then it spoke to Godfrey. "You have entered accounting program A slash 1," it said in a gravelly, male, mechanical voice. A menu appeared on the screen, and the computer recited each listing.

As the election nears, it keeps track of donors and volunteers, spits out Federal Election Commission reports and thank-you letters, targets key precincts and analyzes poll results. In short, "Campaign Manager," a popular political software package that costs $750, can perform many of the functions of its human counterpart - with the help of a personal computer and a computer-wise operator. "The computer is the equivalent of 30,000 volunteers sorting file cards," said John Phillips, president of Aristotle Industries Inc., the program's manufacturer.

I'm a strong supporter of our Technological Age, taking delight in all the new toys these advances have brought us. Computers, cable TV, satellite dishes and the like are all wonderful things. You know what they say: He who dies with the most toys wins. Well, I'm gonna win! But some of these advances have, in certain situations, taken the place of common sense. Let me relate a recent experience. I have fallen behind on my mortgage on occasion - not enough to be in danger of foreclosure, but enough to really tick off the mortgage company.

Step-Saver Data Systems Inc., a Bala Cynwyd computer company, said yesterday that it had filed for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. The seven-year-old company, which provides computer systems for medical and law offices both directly and through franchisees, reported losses in 1987 and 1988. The company said it intended to present a reorganization plan "that will place it in a better position to compete effectively in the rapidly changing computer markets.

Eric's passion is computers, and he can spend many hours happily absorbed in computer games. He also likes doing his schoolwork on the computer. This 9-year-old's second-favorite activity is playing outdoors, especially riding his bike. When he is inside, he enjoys watching cartoons and playing with his toys. Often sweet and caring, Eric is working on controlling his frustration level. He is doing very well in the third grade in a school where he receives special services.

"Sometimes I get an appetite for something downright apocalyptic," says a character in The Big Numbers, and by the time the remark is made those watching Craig Wright's play suspect that this yearning may indeed be satisfied. Already there have been ominous indications that something is not right in the world outside the deep basement computer room where Wright's odd, fascinating, crazy dark comedy is set. One of the two computer operators who are the play's main characters has been finding very large figures on his computer screen and, although we don't learn until three-quarters of the way through the play just exactly what he is counting, it's obvious that these big numbers bode ill for the future of humankind.

If you use the Web, you have probably encountered an annoying invention called a CAPTCHA. They're the squished-up, stretched and squiggled, color-blotched collections of letters you often have to decipher before you can send an e-mail, post a comment, or buy a ticket. Is that an i or an l? you wonder. A zero or an O? Maybe you see three letters where it seems there should only be two. You tilt your head. You scoot your chair back and squint. You wonder if you need new glasses.

PITTSBURGH - At least six more buildings at the University of Pittsburgh received bomb threats Thursday as students and their parents continued to press authorities to solve the case. No bombs have been found and no one has been injured since the threats began more than two months ago. The FBI seized computers and related equipment Wednesday night from a couple who had been questioned in the case earlier, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported. Katherine Anne McCloskey and Seamus Johnston have condemned the threats and said they didn't have anything to do with them.

For thousands of low-income Philadelphia households not connected to the Internet, it will take more than a bargain-rate price of $10 a month for Internet service to get them across the so-called digital divide. The fewer than 500 takers for the service Comcast Corp. began offering in September as part of its merger with NBCUniversal makes it clear greater efforts are needed. So it's good to see a "Freedom Rings" partnership, which includes city agencies, the Free Library, various nonprofits, and Drexel University, form to expand training and computer access.

Jack Tramiel, 83, a hard-charging, cigar-chomping tycoon whose inexpensive, immensely popular Commodore computers helped ignite the personal computer industry the way Henry Ford's Model T kick-started the mass production of automobiles, died Sunday in Palo Alto, Calif. The cause was heart failure, his son Sam said. Commodore rose to prominence in the 1970s and '80s, producing the first computer to sell a million units. Another model, the Commodore 64, sold more than 20 million units - four times the sales of the Apple II, which is often said to have established the personal computer market.

IF YOU'VE been thinking about getting your GED and you're not too good with computers, then get a move on. Effective January 2014, the high-school equivalency test will be more rigorous and entirely computerized, requiring a level of digital fluency that education advocates here say could hinder many test-takers. The GED was last revised in 2002, but for its next incarnation the test will be overhauled by a magnitude never before seen in its 70-year existence. Last year, the American Council on Education, which manages the test nationwide, partnered with a computer-based testing company to develop an assessment that they believe will better prepare students for modern workplace demands.

Turing's Cathedral The Origins of the Digital Universe By George Dyson Pantheon. 432 pp. $29.95 Reviewed by Richard DiDio   Deciding which came first, the ChickenPad or the EggApp, is guaranteed to freeze up any operating system. The more interesting question is: How did our world of hardware and software magically appear out of the ether? In Turing's Cathedral: The Origins of the Digital Universe , George Dyson describes how a remarkable group of innovators rode the dangerous swells of post-World War II politics and real weapons of mass destruction, creating a new science of computing and the machines to carry out its program.

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. - In the last two days of his life, Tyler Clementi visited his roommate's Twitter page 38 times and saved screen shots of two messages posted there. One proclaimed that the roommate, Dharun Ravi, saw Clementi "making out with a dude. " The other "dared" friends to use a web chat program to watch later. Jurors learned those details Tuesday from Gary Charydczak, a detective in the Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office, who testified in Ravi's criminal trial.

A Lower Merion woman has been ordered to stand trial on charges she falsely told a grand jury that a township patrolman sexually assaulted her and fabricated evidence to support that claim. Gabrielle Drexler, 26, of the first block of Rose Lane in Bryn Mawr, was bound over for trial on all four counts against her during a preliminary hearing this morning before District Judge Margaret Hunsicker in Norristown. Drexler was charged by a Montgomery County grand jury last November with perjury, false swearing, tampering with evidence and giving a false report to law-enforcement officers.

JUNIOUS Alexander Rhone Jr. was a computer whiz who didn't hesitate to share his skill with others. Not only family and friends benefited from knowing Jay - as he was called - but so did young people of middle and low incomes who otherwise would not have had access to the technological knowledge needed today to set them on successful career paths. Jay Rhone, a longtime employee of Comcast Cable, an operator of his own computer business, a dedicated trainer of others in the computer field, an activist in cancer-support programs, a devoted family man and an active churchman, died Feb. 7. He was 51 and lived in Upper Darby.

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court yesterday turned down appeals from two Pennsylvania school districts that were successfully sued by students who posted on the Internet malicious mockeries of their school principals. The court's action puts school officials on notice that they may violate the First Amendment if they try to discipline students for online posts made from their home computers. Last year, the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that school officials cannot police "off-campus speech" by students unless they can show that it caused a major disruption at school.