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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, MARCH 30, 1984
PAGE 5
usually via a telephone line (which requires additional equipment).
There are a number of information data bases accessible for a fee, if
your computer is properly equipped. They include data from wire ser
vices, airline flight schedules, etc.
7.
The equipment listed above is commonly termed "hardware," but without
computer programs, or "software," to instruct the computer what to do
and how to do it, the equipment is useless. Two types of software are
necessary:
a.
Operating System Software
An operating system is a collection of programs, often supplied
by the equipment manufacturer, intended to make your computer
easier to use. It allows you to run programs, create and main
tain files, and use various types of devices attached to it, such
as printers and disk drives.
Apple and Radio Shack each have
their own unique operating system.
For 8-bit microcomputers, the most popular operating system is
called CP/M (Control Program for Microcomputers). There are more
programs written using CP/M than any other operating system. For
16-bit microcomputers, the most popular is MS-DOS (Microsoft's
Disk Operating System).
If you buy a 16-bit computer, such as
the IBM Personal Computer, you should select MS-DOS.
More new
programs are being released for it than any other operating
system and it will soon replace CP/M as the leading operating
system.
The importance of selecting the right operating system becomes
apparent when you buy programs for your computer. Both the type
of computer and operating system you have must be specified.
Apple and Radio Shack each have a number of programs available
for their computers.
b. Applications Software
Anyone who is not an experienced programmer should not plan to
write his own programs for a microcomputer.
Numerous programs
are available for a few hundred dollars which allow you to begin
using your computer more rapidly {as opposed to the time it takes
to write your own programs). To compare the features of all the
software available would be very time consuming.
Instead, the
following programs are recommended to departments in the Church,
and any other products should be compared with these before a
decision is made to purchase:
(1) WordStar is the most powerful and commonly used word pro
cessing program for microcomputers.
It is available for
both CP/M and MS-DOS operating systems.
However, it is
somewhat complicated to use compared to other programs of
less capability, such as WordVision or Select.
(2) DBase II is the most flexible and powerful of the programs
for keeping small files of information, such as duties and
people assigned to them, indexes of office files, etc. Its
disadvantage is that because of its flexibility and numerous