Cheap Computing Paves Way For Information Superhighway

Q. I was blown away by your statement in a recent column that you use a 486 laptop computer, and you have a high-speed ISDN telephone network connection at home. This tells me that bandwidth is in and computer processing speed is out. This has tremendous implications. Please explain more.

-Stan Loosley, Oregon, United States

A. You’re right, bandwidth is in. Exciting advances will come in the next few years from connecting computers and televisions to networks of information. The connections will have great bandwidth, meaning they will allow a lot of information, including customized streams of video and audio, to pass each second.

But don’t conclude that computer processing speed is out just because I don’t use the very fastest personal computer available. Keep in mind that by many measures a 486 notebook computer like mine outperforms an IBM mainframe computer of 20 years ago - and costs perhaps 1/5000th as much.

Back in the heyday of the mainframe, processing power was so expensive that several people typically used a single computer cooperatively, through time-sharing. Often these people were far apart geographically, linked to the computer via telephone lines.

In contrast, today many people have two or more computers. No one thinks twice about letting a PC go unused, even for hours at a time. Computing has come down so much in cost, and has become so abundant, that we almost treat it as free.

Now, technology is driving down the cost of communications too. Already the Internet provides global point-to-point communication for a tiny fraction of the cost of a long-distance telephone call. Within a few years we’ll regard communications, like computing, as almost free.

The combination of inexpensive communications and inexpensive computing will ignite a revolution in access to information. This coming era is often called the age of the information highway.

Q. Who coined the name Microsoft?

-JeChoong Yip, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

A. I did, but I don’t think coming up with the name was an achievement. It was the obvious name for a company devoted to microcomputer software. One of the benefits of being the first in a field is that you can claim the obvious name.

Q. Can a CD-ROM get viruses like a diskette can?

-Platterman, aol.com

A. A conventional CD-ROM is a read-only medium. A computer can’t write information to a CD-ROM, as it can to a diskette. This means a CD-ROM cannot be infected with a virus after it is manufactured.

The only time a CD-ROM can be infected is when the virus is part of the information recorded on the disk in the first place. Once a CD-ROM is manufactured, the worst that can happen is it can be scratched or otherwise physically marred, so that parts of it can’t be read.

High-capacity media that can be written to as well as read will become popular soon. This will mean that a computer infected with a virus will be able to infect the media.

Q. Does Microsoft have an incentive program for new ideas that work out? What’s your twist on the old suggestion box?

-Matt Cartwright

A. Most Microsoft employees are eligible for stock options. We’ve found that employees who own a piece of the company are eager to help it prosper, and one way they help is to offer thoughtful suggestions. When someone makes a particularly good suggestion, we may recognize it publicly at a meeting of 1,000 or more employees and give the employee a small number of additional shares of stock.

We don’t collect ideas in a physical suggestion box because a suggestion box is a pain. It’s in one place. You stick a piece of paper in there and wonder if anybody gets it.

Instead, we use electronic mail which lets anyone shoot off a suggestion in seconds. I don’t know how many suggestions a day our employees make this way, but it is hundreds or even thousands.

Q. I want to write programs for entertainment and business. I’m starting my final year at a university. Would a computer science course be what I’m looking for?

-Tristan Austin, Victoria, Australia

A. It’s wise to learn programming even if you’re only going to be using computers. Knowing how to program gives you a sense of how computers work and which kinds of things they’re really good at.

For most people learning an easy but capable language such as Visual Basic makes sense. Many people teach themselves.

But if you want to write professional programs, you’ve got to learn the C++ computer language and ideally some machine language. These require work to learn well. Classes are a good way to start.

If you’re a good programmer, or if you want to challenge your knowledge, read the “Art of Computer Programming” by Donald Knuth. Be sure to solve the problems.

Knuth’s work is published by Addison-Wesley in Reading, Mass. (telephone 617-944-3700), in three volumes, with more to come. The volumes are titled, “Fundamental Algorithms,” “Semi-Numerical Algorithms” and “Sorting & Searching.” If some people are so brash that they think they know everything, Knuth will help them understand that the world is deep and complicated.

It took incredible discipline, and several months, for me to read it. I studied 20 pages, put it away for a week and came back for another 20 pages. You should definitely send me a resume if you can read the whole thing.