Martin Banks, Personal Computer World 03/87 - checked

March 1987

I seem to remember being told at sometime that it is a function of advancing years. After a while, the memory seems to get a bit dusty, things don't seem to come through quite as brightly as they used to.

I seem to be suffering from this problem already, for I feel that I seem to remember something a few years ago about a computer (or something) called `One Born Every Minute' (or something) from a British company, possibly ICL.

It sticks in the mind (vaguely) simply because it was a classic example of British design engineering (if it is what I was thinking it was). This machine was based upon the semblance of a good and original idea and then missed its target by a bit, a trick of which we Brits seem to make a speciality.

No...hang on... the fog is clearing a bit. I was half right, the machine did come from ICL, but the name was wrong.. close, but wrong. The machine in question was (still is, I suppose) called the One Per Desk and the good idea upon which it was based was the simple one of connecting a computer (said OPD) to the telephone network as a means of communication.

One reason the beast missed its target, except within the existing ICL user community, was the fact that it was just a bit early on the scene. If it was being designed now, rather than then, it would probably be quite different, if you see what I mean.

There is a reason for making this contention that goes beyond the mere fact that it was not the most sensible option to base the beast around the guts of a Sinclair QL. That machine may have been a good theoretical design, but the world didn't go that way, and neither did that many users. No, the reason it would now be designed differently is that the nature of the telephone itself is changing in quite fundamental ways.

Such changes mean, of course, that new jargon has to be learned. The item in question is ISDN, which stands for Integrated Services Digital Network. Yeah well, I hear you say, so what does all this telephony stuff have to do with fun-loving, games playing computer freaks (or indeed most people who ever use a computer)?

I, being the self-opinionated individual that I am, will endeavour to tell you.

The nature of ISDN is that the telephone companies worldwide are screwing together the telephone networks into a coherent whole that will handle voice, data and even video all on the same line at the same time. This means, in theory at least, that we will be able to talk to someone on the telephone, anywhere in the world and at the same time see them, if that is what we so desire, and transmit data to them. All of this done as easily and directly as we now work the current telephone system.

The significance of this cannot be understated, for we are all guilty of using the telephone to call friends/relatives/business associates point-to-point virtually anywhere in the world without ever considering the technology involved. We just expect it all to work without a second thought.

Now apply that same consideration to data transmission and things like computer communications software. I'll give you an example of what I mean. Being of advancing years it is only recently that I remembered I really ought to have a go at this Telecom Gold thing, so I got a modem and some comms software out of Olivetti for my (now sadly obsolete) M21 and had a go. I also discussed with handsome and dynamic David Tebbutt, a regular contributor to PCW, doing direct, point-to-point comms between us. After trying to work out where his comms software and mine touched, we decided not to bother and just use Gold instead. The telephone, as with speech comms, is already providing the common carrier through which different systems can communicate.

ISDN takes this idea further. It provides a fully digital communication service for which modems will not be needed. All that `yer-average PC' will require is a chip-set interface. That will gain you access to any other telephone socket, anywhere in the world. Those chips are now coming, indeed many are now here and being designed in to systems.

This may sound all rather fancy but it is coming, and it will have a considerable impact. Imagine, for example, the impact it might have on local area and wide area networks. Everyday a new LAN product appears on the scene, each offering better bells and whistles than the last and all, to a greater or lesser extent, totally incompatible with any other system. The idea, of course, is that a company buys all its LAN products from a single source and gets nicely locked in.

Life, unfortunately for the suppliers, isn't like that too often, which is why many potential users are still deeply suspicious about LANs. In addition, the things just aren't flexible enough. For example, I write for PCW, but I don't work in its offices, so it would be difficult and expensive for me to be part of any LAN (or indeed WAN) it established. I would have to have exactly the right hardware and software, for a start. Not so with an ISDN system. As long as it was compatible with the telephone system, PCW and I could be in business with voice and data on the same line.

As this type of approach to system communications is taken up, it could mark the end of restrictive LAN systems as we know them now. Everything will have to interface with the communications system, so that anything can talk to anything, regardless of hardware or software being used, or location in the perceivable universe.

When such things might happen is still a very open question, for there are many vested interests at work. It is worth noting, however, that while IBM views the PC clone makers as a significant irritation to its unrevealed master-plans, it views the telecommunications companies as the real enemy. If the accursed telephone system lets people with Sinclair Spectrums communicate happily with IBM mainframes to achieve constructive outputs, then Big Blue will have lost its greatest prize - control of its own destiny. That, of course, might be no bad thing......

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