Home computer sales and classroom computer sales
seem to have peaked and now have hit a flat period.
And some say they're going--
I don't think so.
Oh, yes.
They've hit a flat period.
What should that tell us?
I really don't believe that they've hit a flat period.
The computer market has been and is rising at about 30%
per year, and nowhere has there been a flat period.
It is not rising at nearly the rate it was going.
Yes it is.
We disagree.
We're looking at two different sets of numbers.
My question to you is, is the home computer
destined to become the CB of the '80s,
the hula hoop of the '80s?
Well, I'm glad you brought this analogy because like a CB,
it won't be very useful in its present form, which is just
talking to yourself into your computer.
But like a CB, when it starts talking to other computers
throughout the whole country-- when we have several million
machines interconnected, and people can talk to each other
and can exchange views and can transact,
can buy and sell information of services and labor--
I think it's going to be a very interesting period where
we'll have an information marketplace, a new way of life.
I quite disagree.
I don't want to get him angry.
That won't work.
I think that the home computer is
going to suffer the same fate, by and large,
as, say, the home movie camera.
People had the idea--
and still have the idea-- that if they have a very expensive,
a very good home movie camera, then
they can make very good movies.
You'd probably have to be a good movie maker, first.
That's right.
The trouble is you have to have an idea,
and people forget that.
Similarly, to write good and interesting programs
on a computer, one has to have an idea.
Ideas are hard to come by.
Professor Weizenbaum, Professor Dertouzos-- thank you both,
gentlemen.
Moving up on 8/22, we'll come back in a moment.
But first, this is TODAY on NBC.