Comdex/fall '82: More Byte For The Buck

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A similar program, MBA, from Context Management Systems in Torrance, Calif., has been marketed since last summer. MBA, at $695, is much slower and harder to use than 1-2-3 but has features 1-2-3 lacks. The user can integrate word processing with financial modeling and send and receive data from another computer.

Like MBA, both VisiCorp's and Lotus' software products are designed to run on the IBM PC. "At last year's show everyone was writing software for the Apple. This year it's all for the IBM PC," says Esther Dyson, editor-in-chief of The Rosen Electronics Letter, an influential industry publication. The shift reflects the dominant position of both IBM and the more-powerful 16-bit computers.

The change obviously benefits users, since software and hardware manufacturers are at last introducing greater degrees of standardization in their products. Today, the microcomputer industry has few standards. Software written for one computer rarely runs on another. With developers starting to introduce hardware and software that is compatible with the IBM Personal Computer, businesses have a greater choice of software products that will run on their machines -- as long as that machine is like the IBM PC.

"IBM has swayed the momentum of the market into its camp and away from Apple," says IDC's Goldberg. "The reason for this movement toward IBM compatibility is found in the critical area of software availability. Software developers look for the next big market, and today it is IBM and IBM-compatible machines. All the best software products introduced at the show were initially rnade available for the IBM PC."

But compatibility is tricky. Even using the same microprocessor and operating system (the instructions telling the computer how to manage the applications packages as well as the operation of the computer), a machine won't be compatible if the design has been modified.

Some manufacturers trying to make compatible machines might change some features they think are poor on the IBM PC -- the quality of the graphics, for example, or the keyboard layout. So, off-the-shelf software written for the IBM PC might not run on their systems. Also, the manuals written for IBM PC software products might not correspond with computers that have modified keyboards. Nonetheless, more than a handful of companies offered what they called either full IBM PC compatible systems or IBM PC compatible portable products.

Among them, Columbia Data Products Inc., of Columbia, Md., showed an IBM look-alike computer and compatible components, such as memory-expansion boards. Computer Devices Inc., in Burlington, Mass., had a 26-pound portable DOT computer with a built-in printer; Corona Data Systems Inc., of Westlake Village, Calif., offered both a portable and a desktop system; Compaq Computer Corp., of Houston, unveiled a 28-pound Compaq portable computer; and Dynalogic Info-Tech Corp., of Ottawa, Ontario, displayed two models of its Hyperion portable IBM PC compatible.

"IBM compatibility is crucial," says Rod Canion, president of Compaq Computer Corp. "More people are developing software for the IBM PC than for any other 16-bit computer. For that reason we didn't sacrifice anything for IBM compatibility when we designed our system."

In addition to IBM compatible computers, many peripheral manufacturers introduced storage devices, such extras as graphics boards and expansion modules, and other products for the IBM PC. Comdex also reflected the fast-growing IBM PC cottage industry that has spawned two magazines and numerous entrepreneurial operations since August 1981, when IBM introduced its microcomputer.

IBM's entry into the small-business market did more than spark off a run of look-alike and add-on products. It also acted as a catalyst. Such companies as Burroughs, NCR, Digital Equipment, and Wang Laboratories that are known for their mainframe and minicomputers all introduced microcomputers in 1982, and all took booth space at Comdex. This onslaught of small-business products from large manufacturers gives a seal of approval to what some businesses may still have felt was a fly-by-night industry.

"Some of the people that you see here now weren't here last year -- and they are all big players," says Gary Friedman, president of Fortune Systems Corp., of Belmont, Calif., maker of the Fortune 32:16, a 16-bit computer based on a microprocessor different from the IBM PC.

Besides new software and hardware, the largest industry growth is in memory devices. Some 75 disk-drive models were unveiled at Comdex. About 50 were 5 1/4-inch or 8-inch Winchester, or hard, disk-drive models. New technology has raised storage for lower costs in easier-to-handle devices. One breakthrough came from Syquest Technology, of Fremont, Calif. The company demonstrated a hard disk in a plastic cartridge, measuring 1.625 inches high by 4.8 inches by 8 inches -- half the height of a regular 5 1/4-inch hard disk drive -- which, when modified by other vendors, can plug right into a personal computer for 6 million more bytes of storage. In the past, the average floppy disk drive stored the equivalent of about 100 pages of text. A 6 million-byte hard disk can store about 1,250.

Other manufacturers showed hard-disk systems that connect to microcomputers by cable. These can store up to 20 million bytes of data, equivalent to about 5,000 pages of information. Hard disks can range in cost from about $2,000 for 10 megabytes and from $2,500 to $3,500 for 20 megabytes. Last year, all the hard disks cost about $1,000 more, says Andrew Roman, an independent technical disk-drive consultant in Newark, Calif.

"Hard-disk prices are not dropping as fast as they were, but the disks themselves are increasing in capacity," says Goldberg of IDC. "That means small companies will have to buy only one to run their business, when before they might have needed several."

The fast pace of the microcomputer industry means that even products considered revolutionary at Comdex '82 may well be eclipsed by newer ones in the next few months. Comdex itself is evolving as rapidly as the industry it serves. Next fall, the show organizers expect 2,000 exhibitors, touting even more wares.

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