Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!purdue!decwrl!hplabs!hpda!hptsug2!taylor
From: NRCGSH@RITVAX.BITNET (Norman Coombs)
Newsgroups: comp.society
Subject: Re: "Personal" computing
Message-ID: <473@hptsug2.HP.COM>
Date: 29 Aug 88 23:37:58 GMT
Sender: taylor@hptsug2.HP.COM
Organization: The Rochester Institute of Technology, New York
Lines: 50
Approved: taylor@hplabs

If a personal computer is a solution in search of a problem, then it has
found me!

I am a totally blind college professor.  Because my field is history, I
was too stupid to realize that a computer was of any use to me until
about four years ago, and, since then, it has revolutionized both my
professional and personal life.  Actually, it has been so exciting that
it has turned me into a workaholic with little difference between my
personal and professional lives.

I use an IBM XT clone with a speech synthesizer.  Happily, I have two,
one on my desk at work and one in my basement at home.  Although, in
fact, I spend the majority of my time connected to the VAX cluster at my
college.  For me my feelings about my computers is the same whether I am
using the PC alone or connected to the cluster.  I have no FEELINGS
about the difference.

For a blind professional there are two major problems:  transportation
and information access.  I used to depend on human readers.  Now I did
not always find that so convenient.  I suppose in standard definitions
of the term it must have been personal.  In fact, it often was my wife
or mother.  However, personal dependence on another human is not always
so pleasant.  Not that my wife or mother were unpleasant, bvut I HATED
the dependence on another human.  Besides, I never even thought of
waking my wife up at 3 am to read to me because I was suffering from
insomnia.  My computer, however, will do that without complaint and
without creating feelings of dependence and inferiority on my part.  I
suppose that, for such reasons, I might even admit to feeling
affectionate towards my computer.  Granted, it does not lick my ear as
does our household mut, but it does talk to me and "serve" me in ways
that our dog cannot.  That is to say that I have "personal" feelings
towards both my computers.  They wait to serve me day and night and seem
"eager" to meet whatever of my needs they can.

I utilize the computer, PC and cluster, for writing, reading electronic
digests, reading mail, reading student exams and papers, writing mail
and for accessing all kinds of data:  encyclopedias, dictionaries and
large scholarly databases.

As for having a computer dust one's house and wash one's car, I think
those computers are usually called robots.  Unfortunately, they still
need a bit of improvement, and most of us will need to wait for the
price to drop.  When they make one which can drive our car, I will
seriously think about it no matter what its cost.  Then, I could have
the robot drive me where I want to go when I want to get there.  This
would let my wife focus her activities on more personal things that I,
at least, cannot envision a robot doing very well.  Or perhaps Dr.  Ruth
could get into robot design too.

Norman Coombs