show how the user can make the computer work for a purpose. Each of these types of operation can serve both the individual user and the corporate user, and understanding these operations is a step toward computer literacy, specifically toward knowing what a computer can and cannot do and how well it can be made to do a job. In order to perform any of these operations, the computer needs software, also known as application software, or just computer applications. There are various packages that have been created and that are commercially available for specific tasks. The user merely buys the package and places it in the memory of the computer, drawing upon it for whatever application he or she needs at the time. Some of these pre-written packages are discussed, notably Windows (which is actually an application environment that helps the user access and use applications more easily). Other application programs have been written that take advantage of the Windows environment and that the user can access through that environment. There is also custom-made software which the user can commission, as is often the case with large businesses, or write for him or herself. Writing computer programs can be a complex process, but it can also be learned and gives the user considerable freedom.
The author considers the impact of the computer and some of the changes it has brought about and is likely to bring about in the future in terms of the office, the home, and our relations with various institutions in the course of a day. Computers do not actually think, but there are efforts to create computers that can think under the heading of Artificial Intelligence. AI is in use today in various business organizations in the form of Expert Systems, or systems which mirror and imitate the knowledge and decision-making capabilities of an expert in a given field. This is a major use of the computer--to reduce costs by allowing many people to do...