weather or read the news -- computers seem to do it all. Mid-Ocean News writer Roger Crombie tries to make sense of the incredible power and potential of today's home computer For most people who haven't been in school or university in the last five years or so, or who don't use one at work, the problems of choosing a personal computer are a little beside the point.

Whether to buy one at all is the vexing question. Computers are expensive little things. You have to figure you're going to spend $3,000 or $4,000 on a decent one. That kind of money puts buying a PC up with major vacations, smallish boats and painting the house. You have to wonder, even if you're not worried about where the money's going to come from, what kind of return you will get for that kind of outlay.

What's it going to do? If you're a computer neophyte, you can write letters on it, play some games and keep track of your money (although you're going to have to hit the how-to books to get a decent handle on that).

If you've got CD-ROM, you can look things up in an encyclopaedia and do interactive things with a lot of dinosaurs. Can this be worth $4,000? On top of that, there's a very steep learning curve before you graduate from the ranks of the hopelessly inept to that smug and happy band of brothers and sisters who call themselves computer-literate.

At the least, you're going to have to learn enough to install some software and configure it, because you can't just call up some $8-an-hour handyman and get him to do it for you - computer technicians are collar-and-tie people who start at around $40 an hour.

Not long ago, people were describing the discovery of the computer as an event in human history equivalent to the invention of the printing press.

That thought has been revised. Computers are simply the path by which the Internet came to life and that is an event equivalent to the discovery of fire. Such are the views of a thinking man by the name of John Perry Barlow.

You probably don't have much choice. You'd better line the money up, because in 1998, you're not a real human being if you don't have a computer.

But: I assure you that, with a little effort, you won't feel you've wasted your money. A PC on its own can be a joy to have around the house. Software is available to interest you, entertain you, teach you and even, if you get good at it, to run an energy-efficient house. If you have school-age children, nothing you can do will earn you more unconditional gratitude, until you start fighting over whose turn it is.

Here's a tip: don't simply get a PC. Get one and hook yourself up to the Internet. It's like being given the New York Public Library as your personal toy. Whatever it is in the world that interests you, it is there on the Net, awaiting your indulgence.

You can go shopping, read a book, talk to like-minded people about your hobby, watch the weather, read the news, find out what the crew of Endeavour is doing in space, follow the stock market, go to a museum, take some college courses, send some mail, raise some hell, tell the White House how to solve the world's problems ...

The Net is faster now than it's ever been, and can only get faster, like everything else in the world of personal computers.

That world began less than 25 years ago, when Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded Microsoft in April, 1975. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak started Apple a year later.

The Internet itself is little older. It was an idea born of the danger of atomic war. The US military was worried about how to avoid having their communications knocked out by a nuclear strike from the Evil Empire. A 1962 Rand Corporation report suggested a communications system which had no centre, no point of control.

One of their recommendations was that a national public utility be created for the transport of computer data in much the same way the telephone system transported voice data.

The first part of what became the Net went into operation in 1969 at four sites in the US, using Honeywell computers which, with 12K of memory, were considered to be powerful minicomputers in their day.

In these advanced days, 12K of memory is a comic notion: Windows 95 software requires a minimum of four times that space all by itself.

From four computers, the Net grew quickly. No one can say with any certainty how many computers are on it today, but the Internet Business Centre estimated in 1995 that it contained 15,000 computer networks worldwide, 2,500,000 computers, and involved 25 million people in 125 countries around the world.

It has grown non-stop since then. Harper's Index rated its growth at over 25% every three months.

As was intended by its designers, it is without a controlling centre. No one governs it. There are no rules, except what is called, for obvious reasons, the rules of "Netiquette'', which consist of little more than a convention that you do not use newsgroups to try to sell something.

This lack of control has its downside. Most mentions of the Net in the press are in connection with complaints about how much pornography there is. There isn't, actually, say proponents, adding that Net porn is so distant from the point of the Net that the press complaints are as silly as someone who won't go swimming at Horseshoe Bay because he's heard that somewhere in the great wide world, sharks live in the sea.

The Net is the most remarkable thing human intelligence has yet created, an artificial organism with an abundance of intelligence, and on it, a new type of human society is growing.

Whether you see it in those terms, or simply as a useful and amusing piece of technology, depends, in part on your age, temperament and interests.

The foregoing article was updated for this special feature section of The Royal Gazette from a piece which appeared in RG Magazine in 1995.

A WHOLE NEW WORLD -- A lot has happened since the computer became a household tool. In particular, the dawning of the Internet age has brought the power of the New York Public Library into your very home.

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