Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!enterpoop.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.metro From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: At Comdex show, big things come in small packages Date: Mon, 23 Nov 92 15:07:21 EST Message-ID: Lines: 85 \SE B;METROPOLITAN;MONEY;ON COMPUTERS \HD At Comdex show, big things come in small packages \BY Mark A. Kellner \CR THE WASHINGTON TIMES Last week at the Comdex computer trade show in Las Vegas, the future of personal computing started taking shape. Again. It is a shape that will contain more power in smaller packages, and wireless packages at that. American Telephone & Telegraph Co.'s announcement that NEC and Toshiba will make personal communicators using the "Hobbit" chips it has created was interesting - and not just as a sign of continued strength in the American microchip industry. It means there's a good prospect that the Hobbit chip could take an early lead in the standards race for personal communications devices. The devices will contain the basics of a wireless or cellular telephone, a fax machine and a computer, but the emphasis is on communications and that's where the great interest lies. As we discovered early on with desktop PCs, they're great at computing but you soon want to share that information, or get data from other sources. By adding communications capabilities to the basic chip set, the AT&T folks are obviously moving in the right direction. It doesn't hurt that the firm has another division, AT&T Paradyne, which has come up with a micro-sized modem card for the devices, appropriately named the KeepInTouch modem. And to complete the package, AT&T's EasyLink unit has a large, efficient electronic mail network at the ready. If you look at EO Inc.'s personal communicator, which is designed around the Hobbit chip (with AT&T having an equity interest in EO), then you see not only how these devices will work, but how they embody something discussed in this space some nine months ago. The EO device, which will have a list price of just under $3,000, including the cellular phone, is meant to duplicate your date book, fax and note pad. Using a penlike stylus, you can jot down notes and store the data for future reference, transfer it to a desktop machine, or fax it back to the office. The cellular phone not only lets you make calls, but will dial up data networks on command. All of those functions involve the computer chips in the EO machine, but they're not really computing in the classical sense. I'm not (necessarily) crunching a spreadsheet or setting up a data base when I track my travel expenses or list all my contacts, but the technology is there, unobtrusively, in the background. That's what Brian Dougherty, president of GeoWorks in Berkeley, Calif., was talking about last February: putting the power of a desktop in another appliance. Mr. Dougherty's GeoWorks software isn't part of the EO package, but I expect that it will be adapted to other personal communicators before long. What will this require? One thing is lower prices, since $3,000 is a bit much for most of us to spend. Another thing is portability of data. That should come from the Personal Computer Memory Card Industry Association (PCMCIA), which is developing standards for credit card-sized memory cards that will go from one machine to another. A third thing is applications software: WordPerfect Corp. and Intuit, publishers of the financial package Quicken, are planning programs for the EO device. All this won't make the desktop PC obsolete, but it will drive makers to come up with smaller units and still more connectivity. You may want to replace one of your floppy drives with a PCMCIA "drive" before long, and not even think about it. It will probably also mean a boon for places like Kinko's and other "rent a computer" print shops, since traveling executives will line up to print out the latest revisions to that proposal. Bob Dylan once said, "You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows." He may have been as far removed from Las Vegas last week as I was, but is that a faint breeze I feel? This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM