Personal Computer

Oletha Minto, a freshman at the University of Maryland Baltimore County, was able to use her own computer to complete assignments during her first semester."

Army investigators found nearly half a million field reports from Iraq and Afghanistan on a computer memory card among the belongings of Pfc. Bradley Manning, with a note suggesting that an unnamed recipient "sit on this information" while deciding how best to distribute it, according to testimony Monday. The note called the reports "possibly one of the more significant documents of our time" and said they would remove "the fog of war" and reveal "the true nature of 21st century asymmetric warfare," Army special agent David Shaver told the officer leading a preliminary hearing at Fort Meade.

After 10 years of marketing to big business, government agencies and schools, the personal computer industry now is taking what analysts call the "low road" by trying to sell to small companies and individuals.The industry is betting that this strategy, along with retaining existing clients, will help it through the difficult economic times that may lie ahead.Computer prices have been cut, software packages simplified, and distribution channels are changing. Personal computers now are being sold in discount electronics stores along side toasters and radios.

A former Anne Arundel County physical education teacher pleaded guilty Monday to child pornography charges but will not serve any jail time. Gregory Christy, 39, who most recently taught at Rippling Woods Elementary School in Glen Burnie, pleaded guilty to two counts of possessing child pornography. Under the plea agreement, he must forfeit his teaching license and register as a sex offender for 15 years. Anne Arundel County Circuit Judge Paul A. Hackner also placed Christy on five years' probation and suspended an 18-month jail sentence.

BOSTON -- Digital Equipment Corp., left behind in the personal computer boom, is trying to do some catching up.This week Digital plans to unveil a new line of personal computers under an alliance with Intel Corp.And while analysts don't expect Digital to quickly become a dominant player in the personal computer market, they say the strategy will help the company build on its success designing networks for the small desktop machines."Digital is no longer off the radar scope," said Terry Shannon, an analyst with International Data Corp.

Robert Noyce, the co-inventor of the semiconductor chip, was boasting to an electronics industry conference 20 years ago of the day when a room-sized $5 million mainframe computer might be squeezed onto a single sliver of silicon, perhaps the size of a dime.A questioner who couldn't accept Mr. Noyce's stunning prophecy asked how he would feel if he accidentally dropped his tiny computer and lost it through a crack in the floor.Mr. Noyce replied that he wouldn't care because it would cost only $1 or so.The electronics industry still has not been able to produce the disposable $1 computer envisioned by Mr. Noyce.

Chicago - The same forces that created the nation's Wal-Marts, K marts and discount drug emporiums are at work in the computer industry, spawning a new breed of warehouse-size forums for the sale of personal computers.So far, only a handful of such outlets exist nationwide. But for the once-elite personal computer market, mass merchandising appears to be the password for the 1990s.For instance, Tandy Corp. recently announced plans to phase out 200 of its Radio Shack Computer Center stores in favor of six larger Computer City Supercenters this year.

The sexy personal computer industry is looking a lot less glamorous after a week in which some of the biggest names in the business took a trouncing.Consider: Loss-plagued Businessland Inc., once the largest franchiser of PC retail stores, said it may have to file for bankruptcy protection.Compaq Computer Corp.'s stock, for years a Wall Street favorite, plunged 27 percent after it warned that second-quarter earnings may be 80 percent below last year's level.Apple Computer Inc. was reported to be considering layoffs of up to 2,000 employees, or 12.8 percent of its work force, as part of a cost-cutting plan to offset falling profits.

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Back in the mid-1970s, there was only one way to get a personal computer: You had to build it yourself.Since then, personal computers have become ubiquitous, and hundreds of models are sold by everybody from mom-and-pop garage operations to warehouse "superstores."But for those who long for the days of the Altair computer kit, there's no reason to despair. You can still build a machine, one that's as good as any clone on the market, for about the same price.It's not as difficult as it might seem.

The Intel Corp., confirming what some of its customers have already announced, last week formally introduced a 50-megahertz version of the i486 DX microprocessor.The new chip becomes the fastest and most powerful microprocessor available for personal computers, and it moves us one step closer to the day when the average PC user will have access to the computing power of a mainframe computer.Of course, not everyone needs a mainframe on a chip, especially since computers built around it are expected to cost $10,000 or more when they become widely available later this year.

SAN FRANCISCO -- All eyes were on the iPhone, but the Mac stole the show. Apple Inc. said yesterday that it sold 270,000 of its new iPhone devices during the two days they were on sale last quarter, roughly meeting analysts' expectations. But the company's oldest product - the personal computer - delivered surprising growth. Consumers snapped up a record 1.76 million Macintosh computers during Apple's fiscal third quarter, up 33 percent from a year ago. That outpaced the overall PC industry, which shipped 12 percent more computers last quarter.

Johnson re-elected school board head The Anne Arundel County Board of Education elected Tricia Johnson last week to a second stint as president, thwarting former Vice President Eugene Peterson's ambition to ascend to the post. Peterson, who has emerged as a controversial figure for frank comments about racial inequity in schools, accused his colleagues of resting on "predictable stereotypes" and overlooking him for being "too pushy, too upfront, and [lacking] a diplomatic approach." Though he had objections to "the orchestrated effort to not make me president," Peterson seconded Johnson's selection and nominated Enrique M. Melendez for vice president.

Editor's note: After a 40-year career at the Chicago Tribune, the last 14 years of which he spent demystifying and untangling the complexities of the computer age for readers, Jim Coates is retiring. Well, boys and girls, it's time for the old guy with the white beard to log off. Ah, war stories. I've got thousands of them, but relax. For that kind of stuff, you can wait for my autobiography - the working title is Famous People Who Have Known Me. But let me just tell you about the most prescient piece I ever wrote.

As we mark Earth Day today amid growing concern over global warming, one seeming bright spot is the promise of computers and the Internet to deliver a cleaner economy based on information rather than raw materials. That was the gist of a 2004 article in the journal Environmental Science and Technology in which University of California, Berkeley, researchers Michael W. Toffel and Arpad Horvath analyzed paper and Internet delivery of The New York Times to readers in Berkeley. The pair found that the environmental case for Internet news was a slam dunk, confirming what was apparently obvious.

The Inuit have no shortage of words to describe snow and ice and whether the stuff is falling, floating or just lying around. Living near the Arctic Circle is bound to do that to a culture. But what about a people trapped in an equally hostile (if somewhat warmer) environment of personal computers, cell phones, big-box stores, avian flu, pop psychology and mass media? The effects on their vocabulary are bound to be revealing. That brings us to the nearly 100 words the folks at Merriam-Webster have decided to add for this year's update of the company's widely circulated Collegiate Dictionary.

REDMOND, Wash. -- Three decades after he started Microsoft Corp. with the dream of placing a personal computer in every home and business, Bill Gates said yesterday that he would leave his day-to-day role there in two years. He will shift his energies to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which his Microsoft fortune has made the world's largest philanthropic organization, dedicated to health and education issues especially in poor nations. At a news conference after the close of the stock market, Gates, 50, emphasized that he was not leaving Microsoft altogether.

LAS VEGAS -- Those searching for insights into what will be driving the post-Cold War economy may have gotten an important, if unexpected, clue last week: Alliance Gaming Corp. announced that it was acquiring Bally Gaming International Inc. for $215 million.Some might regard the combination of two Las Vegas companies that essentially manufacture souped-up slot machines as something less than an economic milestone.But Craig I. Fields, a man who knows a few things about the Cold War, thinks otherwise.

No great high-tech invention story would be complete without a garage. For 12 ambitious IBM engineers in the summer of 1980, the next best thing was Building 203. Located on the outskirts of the company's manicured 550-acre campus in Boca Raton, Fla., Building 203 was known as the "Skunk Works" by the white-shirted techies who worked there. And for good reason. Hidden behind a post office, it had no sculpted shrubs, manmade ponds or other decorative touches that garnished the main campus.

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Steve Wozniak says he never intended to change the world. That was the other Steve, Steve Jobs. He just wanted to build computers. Oh, and he really - really - wanted to spend his career as a Hewlett-Packard engineer, a position he reluctantly left. Life turned out differently for the self-trained electrical engineer. In 1976, he and Jobs started Apple Computer, which helped to launch the personal computer revolution. Observers say Apple would never be what it is today without either Steve - Jobs, the tech evangelist and visionary, and Wozniak, whose technical genius created computers for the masses.

NEW YORK -- Sometime in the near future, Paul S. Otellini, Intel Corp.'s new chief executive, hopes we'll all be chanting the word "Viiv," as in rhymes with "five." That's Intel's name for the technology powering a new generation of devices for the "digital home." These machines are designed to make it easy to connect your personal computer with your TV, your stereo, your digital phone and any other gadget you've recently been persuaded to buy. In tech jargon, that's called "interoperability."