Personal Computer

When William P. McDonnell went out last fall to buy a personal computer, the IBM PC he wanted was selling for about $2,800. Unwilling to pay that much, he ordered an IBM-compatible AT&T 6300 for $1,900. But he canceled that order when he found that for $1,200 he could get a Beltron that would run all the IBM software he wanted to use. A Beltron? Who ever heard of a Beltron? And who would be daring enough to buy a computer whose brand name wasn't a household word? Recently, more and more people have heard of the Beltron, Philadelphia's entry into the low-cost IBM-compatible sweepstakes.

Completions of new homes rose a scant 0.3 percent in July to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.51 million units, the Commerce Department said yesterday. The increase in June had been 3.6 percent. The July rate was 10.4 percent below the July 1987 pace of 1.68 million units, the department said. Completions of single-family homes fell 3.1 percent in July to a 1.06- million-unit annual rate after rising 0.6 percent in June, while completions of multiple-unit buildings rose 9.4 percent to a 444,000-unit rate after a 12.4 percent June rise.

Intelligent Electronics Inc., the fast-growing Exton computer franchiser, yesterday said it would buy Entre Computer Centers Inc., making the combined company the third-largest retail computer chain in the country. Intelligent Electronics agreed to pay a total of $58 million, or $6.10 per share, for the shares of Entre, a McLean, Va., computer retailer that currently includes a total of 172 franchises and 12 company-owned stores. Entre has recently staged a dramatic return to profitability after a roller-coaster ride through the computer-industry shakeout of the mid-1980s and a resulting legal war with unhappy franchisees.

Funny how a stray word, a simple phrase, can sometimes trigger distant memories. Just the other day, a friend referred to the "good old days. " I'm not sure how good those old days were, but when you think about them, they do seem to have been a lot simpler. Years ago, a computer was rumored to be the first step in a government conspiracy to keep an eye on every citizen. Now, nearly every desk in America has a personal computer sitting on it. A long time back, prostitution was considered aberrant behavior.

Religious computer software is a big business, with dozens of companies supplying all kinds of programs. Here in the Age of Information, it makes sense that the Bible would be available on-line. By hooking your computer up over a phone line with Dialog Informations Service (Information: 800-3-DIALOG), you can read the King James Version. That's 33,600 records, including every word of the Old and New Testaments. Few people probably will want to read the Scriptures off a screen, but more likely may use the computer to research the Bible.

Computer makers are moving in a big way to turn the personal computer into a home appliance as friendly and useful as a stereo or toaster. The boxy machines, which have looked like intruders from the office, are becoming sleeker, more colorful and easier to set up. Many of the new machines play music as well as a home stereo, video as well as a television, and answer the phone and take messages as well the best answering system. They come with color-coded wires for easier setup.

Years into the computer revolution, the sight of a 4-year-old adeptly manipulating a mouse to open and close computer files still blows us away. Not so the Microsoft and Compaq folks sponsoring a first-ever Family Computer Carnival at the Pennsylvania Convention Center on Saturday and Sunday. Quite aside from rows on rows of the latest family-friendly products, the "carnival" - when one multiplies the number of activities times the probable number of children attending, carnival seems the right word - has scheduled many hands-on mini-workshops in order to make the whole business manageable and understandable.

In her small office at Lockheed Martin Management & Data Systems in King of Prussia, Jayne McGinnis keeps meticulous records on certain employees, including personal details such as spouses' names, credit card numbers, and hobbies of family members. Employees eagerly give her the information because McGinnis is not some gatekeeper for high-level security clearance. She is the go-to person when Lockheed Martin employees need to plan vacations, buy gifts, or even organize parties for their families.

Remember the old television series Lost in Space? Well, until recently, Len and Ellan Bernstein were lost without space. They needed an area in their Bala Cynwyd house large enough to accommodate Ellan's full-time law practice and Len's after-hours legal work. Their two children, Mathew, 5, and Suzanne, 11 months, eventually would use the same space for homework and playing computer games. Since buying their 30-year-old, four-bedroom Colonial two years ago, "I'd been making do with an old, poorly functioning desk in the corner of a guest room," Ellan Bernstein said.

The latest in computers sounds like something handed down from the mountaintop. The Tusk tablet, which describes itself as an "all-terrain supertablet," is a three-in-one computer. Depending on what parts a user chooses to carry along, it's a desktop, laptop or pen computer. The versatility is built upon a fundamental rearrangement of the main components of a portable computer. In conventional portables, the guts of the machine lie below the keyboard. But in the Tusk machine, the main circuit board and microprocessor are underneath the screen, allowing the screen to be detached from the keyboard.