A Call to Arms, By John C. Dvorak Part 3 of 4

This brings me to the point of this message.  The future of the small
computer revolution is directly tied to its ability to communicate with
other computers, BBS's the office, you-name-it. This does not mean LAN's
and all its sinister baggage.  It means WAN's -- wide area networks.
Networks of people communicating with each other as they see fit over MCI,
BBS's, Compuserve.

This is the key trend that has somehow been stopped in its tracks.  This is
a trend I want to reverse.  Nick Anis and myself are doing a big fat book
on telecommunications for Osborne/McGraw-Hill and I intend to use it as
leverage to promote modem use and the further development of the BBS
movement.  We really need your help.  We're looking for a few good men to
help us develop some of the technically-oriented chapters.  I want to
include a chapter which outlines EVERY switch setting on every modem ever
made (who doesn't lose documentation?).  This means we need to know the
switch settings on the weird old modem you have in your kid's used XT.  We
need beta testers and technical types who can read some copy looking for
technical errors (we want this to be accurate to the nth degree).  If you
have a desire to help out on this project, let us know at the voice, BBS
and fax numbers listed below.

Finally, to let you know the seriousness of this project I want to relate a
story.  This book project was offered to a couple of major New York
publishers who have been asking me to do something for them for years.
They still want me to do something, but not telecommunications.  "It's
dead," I was told. Apparently they were told that by some big unnamed
computer companies who seem to dislike the decentralization of computing.
If I want to sell a book about LAN's that would be another story. This is
all hard for me to believe since I know better about these trends.  But
unless I prove these to these guys that they are the ones being led to the
slaughter, then I have no leverage when it comes to promoting the trends
anywhere.  There's an old rule: say something enough times and people will
think its true. Well, it's about time the individual user spoke up again
and made it clear that telecommunications is important otherwise we'll all
end up hooked to some bosses LAN.  We can use all the help we can get.

See Part 4 of A Call to Arms