No More Downtime

Order a round of Dom Perignon. Put on a party hat. Grab a noisemaker. Get ready to shout "Happy Anniversary!" After all, it was just ten years ago that Americans walked into retail stores and saw the first fully assembled personal computers sitting on the shelves, waiting to be taken home and plugged into the socket. It was the beginning of the computer era for millions of people, ranging from sixth-graders learning to log on, to secretaries spinning out reams of letters, to hopeful authors plugging away at their novels on the screen.

Nowadays a zippy chorus or two of Happy Days Are Here Again would not be out of order either. After its initial burst of prosperity, the computer industry | fell into a two-year slump that some feared might signal a permanent slowdown in growth. The good news in computerdom is that the sluggishness appears to be over and many makers of personal computers are once again registering record revenues and plump profits. The companies' stock prices have recovered, and some firms are hiring factory workers and sales people after a long spell of layoffs and attrition. Best of all, as far as customers are concerned, the computer companies have parlayed several recent technological breakthroughs into a passel of affordable, easy-to-use new machines that seem to be leaping through dealers' doors and into U.S. homes and offices. Says William Lempesis, an analyst with the Dataquest market-research firm: "There's been an upswing in the entire industry."

Two of the biggest players certainly came out swinging last week in Manhattan, where both IBM and Tandy staged long-awaited product announcements. In a much ballyhooed presentation party at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel, Tandy introduced two personal-computer models targeted for use in high schools and colleges, another aimed at the office market and a lap-top model designed for executives on the go. The occasion gave the Texas-based company a chance to renew its claim of having pioneered the mass marketing of personal computers with the August 1977 introduction of its model TRS-80. For Tandy Chairman John Roach, the unveiling was also an opportunity to let loose a not so subtle shot at the industry's Goliath. When someone in the audience asked about IBM's next move, Roach jumped to his feet, grabbed a microphone and drawled, "I can hardly wait."

He did not have to. The next day IBM also made a major foray into the world's $9.8 billion-a-year educational and home markets with two of its own new low-cost machines. The company hopes the models, which start at $1,350, will generate much more excitement than its PCjr series, which fizzled 16 months after a November 1983 introduction. The new IBM Model 25, for example, which sells for a suggested list price of $1,695 with a color monitor, boasts five to eight times the memory of a PCjr, a larger, easier-to-use keyboard and greatly improved graphics. On the same day IBM added a high-end $13,995 model to its much touted Personal System/2 series, the line of office gear introduced in April to replace the old IBM PCs.