Reviews the development of personal computers and how computer components have changed in price and value. Highlights include disk drives; keyboards; displays; memory; color graphics; modems; CPU (central processing unit); storage; direct mail vendors; and future possibilities. (LRW)

Discusses changes that have made desktop publishing appealing and reasonably priced. Hardware, software, and printer options for getting started and moving on, typeface developments, and the key characteristics of desktop publishing are described. The author's notes on 33 articles from the personal computing literature from January-March 1994 are…

Discusses the history of the graphical user interface (GUI) and the growing realization that adaptations must be made to it lest its visual nature discriminate against nonsighted or sight-impaired users. One of the most popular commercially developed adaptations is to develop sounds that signal the location of icons or menus to mouse users.…

The three articles in this special section on document image files discuss intelligent character recognition, including comparison with optical character recognition; selection of displays for document image processing, focusing on paperlike displays; and imaging hardware, software, and vendors, including guidelines for system selection. (MES)

Discusses image scanning and optical character recognition. Describes how computer scanners work. Summarizes scan quality, scanning speed requirements, and hardware requirements for scanners. Surveys the range of scanners currently available. (MVL)