By Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 1990, The Syracuse Newspapers
What would you list as the most important invention of all time?
Most
people would probably say, "the wheel." But I have a
different candidate.
I think the telephone is No. 1.
Without the wheel, we could still get around—by plane or boat
or on our
own two feet. But we could not keep our modern society functioning
without the
telephone.
But I'm not referring to the "Is-this-the-party-to-whom-I-am-speaking"
kind of telephone that you talk to Aunt Sally on. The telephone
that ranks at
the top of my list is the one that computers use by means of modems.
Without
the nearly instant communication provided by telephone lines,
computers of all
types and sizes—from the Pentagon's basement behemoths to the
little Apples
in school classrooms—would find nearly all of their work impossible
to do.
The changes in communication that are happening all around us
constitute a
real revolution. Things aren't just different; they're so radically
changed
that they'll never be the same again.
And yet the train that this revolution is taking has begun to
leave the
station with most of its likely passengers still standing at the
boarding
gate. Although computers are now easier to use than ever before,
and although
modems are absurdly inexpensive, and despite the fact that electronic
mail is
vastly easier to deal with than envelopes and letters, and regardless
of the
wealth of software and information available free for a telephone
call, most
of you apparently are afraid to take that first step from the
platform to the
train.
I realize that this may seem out of place. This is, after all,
a column of
news and tips about personal computing, not the editorial page.
But that kind
of narrow view will keep all of us from seeing what is really
happening.
Changes that happen slowly—over a period of a decade or so —
can be far
more important than ones that happen overnight. But they are a
lot harder to
appreciate, because we steadily become used to them day by day,
month by
month.
So put that left foot ahead of the right. Step up into the train.
There'll
be someone there to help you find a seat.
technofile:
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