B
y Cathleen Slechta
Kansan staff writer
In the classroom of the future, the sound of pencils and pens feverishly
scratching on paper will be replaced by the clicking of computer keyboards.
Thanks to modern technology, personal computers are taking the place of pen and paper in students' lives.
What are these tiny, lap-top computers that are popping up in lecture halls and dorm rooms on college campuses across the nation? Can something so small really take the place of the larger, more old-fashioned desk-top computers?
"Personal computer is kind of a generic term," said Mike Swalm, assistant manager of Jayhawk Bookstore, 1420 Crescent Road. "Basically, it does everything big mainframes like the ones you find in the computer centers on campus do, but it's smaller. It has nothing to do with power capacity. It's just your own personal system to take to class, the library or anywhere."
Swalm said Zentih was the first computer company to produce a truly portable computer.
Weighing under seven pounds and about the size of a three-ring binder, most personal computers fit easily into a backpack or briefcase. With their batteries charged, most personal computers can function from three to six hours.
Swalm said personal computers offered advantages that home computers could not.
Emmanuelle Boilon, exchange student from Besançon, France, studies at Watson Library with her PowerBook.
"Portable computers open up a tremendous amount of opportunities for their users," he said. "If they carry one with them everywhere, their time will be more productive. If they come up with a brilliant idea, they can write it down and do something with it."
Students can even be seen using their personal computers in class as a note-taking aid. Ban McCulley, first-year law student, said he saw many of his classmates using personal computers during lectures.
"There's usually two or three students per class that get them out and start taking notes on them in class," McCulley said. "They type fast, but it doesn't seem to be too difficult for them."
One aspect of personal computers that may cause problems for students is financing them. The Zenith Z-star with a monochrome screen, one of the more
popular personal computers, runs about $1500. A model with a color display is $635 more.
The Macintosh Powerbook, a personal computer model that is popular with students, ranges in price from $1,400 to $2,250.
One new advancement in the computer industry is the Compaq Contaure Aero. Compaq Computer Corporation introduced this three-and-a-half pound, smaller-than-a-piece-of notebook-paper model last month.
Brian Temple of the Compaq Computer Corporation said that at $1,399 for a monochrome screen and $2,199 for a color display, the Contura Aero is the least expensive, fully-featured portable personal
computer on the market today.
Swalm said that Jayhawk Bookstore currently did not carry the Compaq line but that it may be offered soon.
"We're very content with what we have," Swalm said. "But we will probably get Compaq in. It may be a little more expensive, but I'm sure students will be interested."
Despite their expense, Swalm said the personal computer business was good. Many students take advantage of the discounts that are available to them during their college years.
This year alone, Jayhawk Bookstore sold 21 monochrome models and one color model.
Sue Nishikawa, coordinator of the Academic System for Training and Use of Technology in Education, or ASTUTE Center, said she couldn't remember how life was before she purchased her personal computer.
"I don't think I could survive if I didn't have it." Nishikawa said. "It's like my right arm. I don't know if that's good or bad, because my handwriting is so bad now, I'm so out of practice. I use my personal computer for everything."
Nishikawa said she kept letters, addresses and meinos on her personal computer. She even has projected the image on her computer screen onto a wall for presentations.
Other technological advances allow students to insert credit-card-sized data and fax modems, devices that convert data from one form to another, into their personal computers. Swalu said scanners could be attached to most personal computers, allowing students to scan text, photographs and drawings right out of book pages onto their computer screens.
"Students can take their personal computers to the library and literally put the copy machines out of business," he said. "The advancement of these products is so rapid, I would put nothing past them."
Nishikawa said she thought students should take advantage of portable personal computers.
"I don't think we will ever have enough computers on campus for students," she said. "Students' lives would be much easier if they had a personal computer, because it's something you can take with you wherever you go. The more portable the model, the better."
Plot-by-number scripts common
By John Horn
The Associated Press
LOSANGELES—As if today's movies weren't predictable enough, new computer programs are helping write plot-by-the-numbers screenplays with the flip of a floppy.
Yes, the hot new screenwriter in town never takes a power lunch, doesn't know the meaning of writers block and works without screen credit or a percentage of the gross.
The Plots Unlimited software includes Conflict No. 1159: "Carol fakes an injury from an automobile accident so she can collect damages from the car owner. Dave."
"Best of all, no more superficial scripts that take a year to write and don't sell," claims StoryLine, one such writing program.
And the Collaborator program includes something called Lajos Egri's List of 100 percent Characteristics.
"The magic foundation for creating thousands of dynamic characters in classic stories."
The Writers Guild of America, the screenwriters' union, says about 50 percent of its members use these or similar software. Their popularity is a predictable consequence and a dramatic symbol — of Hollywood's increasingly obvious addiction to formula storytelling.
Indeed, scores of recent movies look as if they might have been — and some, no doubt, were — conceived with a mouse and a spreadsheet.
Duplication is now more marketable than daring; for every "Piano" there is
"No more superficial scripts that take a year to write and don't sell."
Storyline
Screenwriting software
And wedged between the scores of sequels are countless variations on a handful of themes. For instance, in July's "Little Big League," a youngster inherits a baseball team. Call it a cross between "Rookie of the Year" and "Major League."
"Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit," Beethoven's 2nd" and "Beverly Hills Cop III."
For every derivative film that is produced, there are scores of others in development or slated for release.
In the works at Largo Entertainment, for example, is "Suspension" — touted as "Die Hard" on a bridge. "The company also has" "Trouble Shooter" — an ocean liner drama called "the Caribbean variation on the 'Die Hard' theme." Warner Bros. owns "Sand Blast" — "Die Hard" in the desert.
The inspiration for the cloning rests with Hollywood's sinister version of reward and punishment.
Writers, directors and, most notably, the studio executives who bankroll movies are not rewarded for falling well. The most high-minded movie that bombs is still a bomb. Conversely, "Ernest Scared Stupid" is filmmaking genius: It may not be any good, but it's profitable.
When the penalty for failure is so oppressive, no one wants to take risks. Everyone in Hollywood passed on "The Crying Game" not because it wasn't interesting but because it didn't seem "commercial."
There's a movie version of television's "Lassie," Tom Cruise in a "Mission: Impossible" movie; and "Star Trek: Generations," in which William Shatner's Captain Kirk meets Patrick Stewart's Captain Picard.
If there's a beacon of creativity, that lighthouse is the independent film company. Since the independent companies' financial stakes are minuscule when compared to the major studios, the independents are more likely to gamble on original, provocative material.
The upcoming release slate from Paramount typifies Hollywood's inscapable fondness for reinventing the wheel:
Their numbers are quickly dwindling, though. New Line (and "Short Cuts" maker Fine Line) are now a part of Ted Turner's sprawling media company, and Miramax was bought last year by Disney.
Duplication is not limited to movies. In the works is a television miniseries sequel to "Casablanca."
Play it again,Sam.
Pre-Fab Beatles run helter skelter in upcoming film
Hillel Italie
Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK (AP) — The lead singer hangs a toilet seat around his neck and cracks jokes about Nazis. The bass player wears shades and turns his back to the audience. Band members have to dodge bottles thrown at the stage, and popping pills is the only way to stay awake.
Ladies and gentlemen, meet the Beatles—the early Beatles.
No screaming girls. No fluffy hair. No hit records. In the beginning were long hours, short tempers and dance halls that looked like war zones. Few who saw the Beatles on "The Ed Sullivan Show" could have imagined their transformation from scruffy punks on speed to merry montons in suits.
Thanks to a veritable invasion of records, books, videos and movies, millions of Beatlemaniacs have become experts on the band's years at the top, but a new film, "Backbeat," tells the less glamorous story of the pre-Fab days, the early 1960s.
"I wasn't really that interested in making a film about the 'Beatles,' said director Jain Softley, 37, who makes his feature debut with "Backheat."
"I was looking to make a film about people who wanted to break out of their own backgrounds, looking for new experiences."
He became interested in the Beatles' story in 1983 after finding some old pictures of the band taken in Hamburg, Germany: The photogra-
See BEATLES, Page 10.
APRIL 12, 1994
PAGE 9
KULife
People. and places at the University of Kansas.
LEAD STORY
In February, Philadelphia's Department of Licenses and Inspections served notice of a violation on dancer Crystal Storm at The Doll House. The department's weights and measure division, whose primary job is checking the accuracy of meat-market scales, ascertained Storm's bust measurement at only 50 inches vs. her advertised measurement of "127," which Storm said was in centimeters. Said department official Frank Antico, "that's deceptive advertising."
TACKY. TACKY
— According to a report in *The Arizona Republic*, artist Fritz Schirzer of Scottsdale, who said he “buys a book a day,” divided his library into parts: books that mentioned him and books that didn't.
The Washington Times reported in February that D.C. Mayor Sharon Pratt Kelly has used public funds to retain Julie Rodgers-Edwards since 1902 as a $65-an-hour makeup artist, in order to pretty up the mayor for all public appearances and photo and TV sessions. In March, The Times reported that Rodgers-Edwards has all along lacked the $45.D.C. cosmetology license because she had not yet taken the proper tests.
— In January, the U.S. Postal Service withdrew from circulation most of the rare, misprinted 29-cent stamps honoring cowboy Bill Pickett but picturing his brother Ben. To recover one outstanding stamp, which may be worth $1 million to collectors, the Postal Service offered the owner, Dan Piske of Bend, Ore., 29 cents and a Postal Service coffee mug (Piske declined).
— Courthouse officials in Durham, N.C., suspect that in February a disgruntled lawyer or lawyers stole a big stack of brochures that explained how battered women could obtain court orders against their husbands without resorting to a lawyer.
MULTICULTURALISM
— The Associated Press reported in August on the growing movement in Muslim countries to abandon the ancient tradition of permitting husbands to divorce their wives by shouting "Talaq" three times. Pakistan, Turkey, Syria and Indonesia are among the nations that have abandoned the tradition, but it continues in India. In India, a man either may shout "Talaq" three times at once, with the divorce effective four months later, or shout "Talaq" one time during each of three consecutive menstrual periods and be divorced immediately after the third shout.
— In August, near Denver, two Tarahumara Indians from northern Mexico, one aged 55, finished first and second in the highest-altitude 100-mile race in the United States, the Leadville 100, even though the Indians were the only runners not wearing conventional running shoes. Both were homemade sandals made from used automobile tires.
— In September, The Economist magazine reported that Japan's meteorology agency had recently completed a seven-year study to ascertain the validity of the Japanese legend that earthquakes are caused by catfish wiggling their tails. After trying to match catfish tail-wagging with a number of small earthquakes, the agency abandoned the study, refusing to confirm or criticize the
See WEIRD,Page 10.