A4 - Sunday, January 29, 1984 - North Shore News

I REALIZED. some time. ago ‘that: my ) Kaypio: i

computer isn’t just a. television ¢ ‘Screen attached toa
typewriter keyboard. If a FV can rightly be-describ-

ed as a window on the universe; my computer ter: “,

minal is a doorway. -.

In the last three months, I
have merely been :learning
how to use it as-a writing
machine. But now I’m in the
process of selecting a modem
— a device that attaches to

the telephone and transmits .
the stuff I write djrectly from °

my computer tq other com-

puters.out there in the world,

starting with the one-being. in-
stalled at the North Shore
News. .

Recently, Timothy Leary
was quoted as saying that
computers are the LSD of the
1980s, and I can see what he
means. I realize that I’m
crossing a threshold into an
utterly new, hard-to-believe
environment of living data-
flows,

Architect Bruno Freschi_

told me not long ago that he
believes we have actually
entered what French philos-
opher Tielhard de Chardin
called the ‘‘noosphere,”’
meaning an envelope of
information that would
someday surround the globe
like an extra layer of atmos-
phere. —

I have seen the future — it
is a microchip.

In Canada, the chief guru
of the electronic new age has
to be Frank Ogden, who runs
an outfit called 21st Century
Communications. He
Operates out of a floathouse
that looks like the forward
section of a 747 with. the
wings sliced off, moored near
the Bayshore Inn beside an
immense satellite dish.

Frank recently returned
from Sri Lanka where he

worked with Arthur C..

Clarke to set ap a communi-
cations system for a univer-
sity there that he describes as
more advanced than anything
in North America.

f can believe it. Frank's
Own operation at home is
enough itself to stagger the
imagination.

He pulls in. some 178. video
channels. and is ‘plugged, via
his two Franklin computers
and.a Texas Instruments data
terminal, to databases that
are so sophisticated, so
heavy-duty, that one 6f them
— called Nexis — has been
“declared:.a war weapon by
Ronald Reagan, which means
that foreigners, including
Canadians, are prohibited by
American law from tapping
into it directly.

Instead, Frank Ogden has
print-outs of the service rush-
ed by courier from a.com-
puter terminal in Blaine.

He IS able to feed directly
from such databases as Info-
globe, Compuserve, The
Source, Newsnet and

‘Europe’s ‘Diane system.

These are the world’s premier
information services. They
scan everything from the
Japan Economic Journal and

the Manchester Guardian to.

highly specialized and: influ-
ential newsletters like Middle
East Executive Reports,
Nucleonics Week and the
Defence and Foreign Affairs
Weekly.

What these services mean
is that the screen on my hum-
ble little computer can open
onto a virtual Pandora’s Box
of information, data, facts
and stats, I can pull almost
limitless Knowledge out of
the air! And it can be in my
hands instantly.

The most exciting part of
all this is that, amazing as it is
to be able to gain access to a
true global information net-
work at the touch of a few
keys, this is just the begin-
ning. The magical little door
that has swung open before
my wondering cyes is about
to become a Noodgatc.

According to Frank
Ogden, the Japancse have
already developed microchips

computer:

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je

You'll be able to talk to it:
Stay tuned.

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