Microcomputer applications

Surveys of the use of micros that were made a few years ago suggested that use was concentrated in a few business functions. Calcs and financial reporting packages were expanding in use so rapidly that other types of applications seemed to be unnoticed. However, micros were being introduced in many laboratories and production facilities. A recent survey of departments of companies that use micros reported 98 separate applications that could be grouped under the following organizational areas: accounting, planning, treasurer, purchasing, administration, personnel, operations or production, marketing and other Most of the applications were financial in nature although operations or production uses were significant. Financial modeling and calc packages were used not only in financial applications, but they were also used develop a master scheduling job for manufacturing and for administrative and planning applications. Word processing packages were also used to handle many different jobs such as promotion, scheduling, tracking of assignments and automatic editing of information accessed from data bases. Packages are used quite often with micros as generalized development tools. This results in interesting support problems. Applications of micros can also be considered in terms of the data communication involved. Most uses of micros have been on a stand alone basis, but an increasing number of applications involve communication with another micro or a host computer. The micro may be an intelligent terminal controlled by the host or it may be directing the other computing system. The micro may also transfer control back and forth to the other system in an integrated application.