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Volume LXXXX Number 5	University of Southern California	Tuesday, June 30, 1981
Communications revolution changing lifestyle, education
The current state of the communications revolution is likened to a 10-lane highway by Richard Byrne, acting dean of the university’s School of Communications.
On this highway, some people are walking at 2 m.p.h. Others are travelling on bicycles, motorcycles, cars and buses. Those in a hurry are whizzing along in Indianapolis Speedway cars.
The flow of traffic is far from orderly. Some travelers accelerate while others apply their-brakes. Everyone is changing lanes.
“The communication revolution is already here, but the impact is not felt by everyone,” Byrne said.
“What is significant about this stage in history is the coexistence of widely disparate stages of human development. You can see it in two classrooms of the same school. One teacher won’t touch a calculator or computer; to another, ‘logging in’ is a religion.”
Byrne believes profound changes are taking place in communications that are too easily discounted.
“We are passing through a major transition in human history,” he said, “and change is accelerating at an astonishing rate.
“In 1946. the first major
numerical computer, ENIAC, was created with 18.000 six-inch-high vacuum tubes. It was obsolete when it was finished.
“In 1947, Bell Labs came out with transistors. 12 years later, the integrated microcircuit— chip— was developed, and it has become smaller and smaller.
“Now you can get 300,000 transistors on a quarter-inch chip. It can do stupendous numbers of calculations. It has no moving parts, no wires, no bulbs. It can be embedded in the human body.”
In the growing field of biocy-bemetics, advances are being made in voice synthesis, voice actuation, voice typing and optical typing. Robotic artificial limbs are availables that respond to mental impulses.
Communications technology holds great significance for poeple with little education or low literacy, Bynre said.
“People are being empowered with abilities beyond their common experience and innate capacities. Machines, such as small personal computers, can give instructions and teach you what to do. If you need help, you can simply punch a prompt key,” he explained.
Anyone can purchase software off the shelf for text editing, financial or data management establishing file systems
or starting up a new business.
“This technology is not out of reach for the average person. ®«i«5onal microcomputers can oe purchased for $500 or $600.”
Various communications madhines that were once separate and independent, Byrne added, are now converging. The personal computer, telephone, typewriter and television can be linked to peform similiar or complementary functions.
“I’m not a gear freak, out to wire everybody up. But the potential for having access to information, for organizing and using it to good effect, is tre-mendusly increased by these new technologies,” he says.
“The bad news is this: growing signs of an information gap between those who understand and use the technologies— the information ‘haves’— and those who are denied access to information systems— the ‘have nots.’”
Increasingly, he says, information is power, It’s the wealth of nations,— a commodity that’s bought and sold, shipped and stored.
“I could see this developing into an information war, where the ‘have-nots’ rise up against the ‘haves’ and demand control of the information systems."
For the most part, though
Byrne is optimistic about the effects of advances in communications. He does not agree with detractors who fear reliance on the new technologies to the exclusion of thought.
“We will always need human thought and wisdom,” he says. ‘‘‘Automatic technology does not cause human capabilities to atrophy. For instance,
I	do more mathematics now than I ever did before I got a hand-held calculator. By freeing us from the drudgery of ■“Aetitive tasks, communication technologies could dramatically expand our options. The potential is great for a vast improvement in the quality and richness of people’s everyday lives.”
For many disabled persons, the communications revolution, is the “great equalizer,” said Byrne.
Not only do the technologies provide them a new means of speaking, writing and reading, Byrne explained, but the burgeoning communications industry is wideopen to anyone— including most disabled persons— who is willing to learn the technology'.
“Computer technology does not require physical strength or mobility,” he said. “Input and output are accessible with one finger or toe. Data can be given in many ways, and most disa-
bled people can use at least one of them.
“Relatively few people have experience in the new technologies, so the opportunities for employment are good. Increasingly, whoever wants to get into the field can do so,” he adds.
“The key determinants of success are insight, clarity, conception— not physical capabilities, a witty personaalitv or cute looks.”
Computers, in particular, place many physically disabled persons on an equal footing with the able-bodied. Byrne said.
“It doesn’t matter so much of you are physically slow. Although the speed of calculations is incredibly fast on a computer, instructions and information are entered at a slow rate.”
More disabled persons now have access to jobs and education through home computers. Byrne believes many disabled persons will be in the vanguard of the electronic cottage, industry predicted by Alvin Toffler and others.
Of more immediate consequence to disabled persons are new devices and machines that help overcome specific handicaps.
(Continued on page 2)
John Wayne story given to university
By Victor Currie
Editor
Nine seventy-five page voloumes detailing the life and career of John Wayne have been donated to the university library's special collections section.
Connie Thompson has donated a total of 127 volumes of clippings and related materials on the lives of famous motion picture stars to the university. The volumes about Wayne have taken the longest to compile.
“This is the longest one I've ever done.” Thompson said. “Five years I’ve been working on this one, since 1976.”
The new additions become part of the Constance McCormick Collection (Thompson’s former married name is McCormick), which covers the walls of the special collections room in Doheny Library.
Thompson started the collection in 1934 when she was eight years old.
When travelling by train to the Chicago World’s Fair, her mother gave her a dollar to buy movie magazines at one of the stops. She came back to her seat on the train with copies of Photoplay. Motion Picture, Screenland and other magazines that were available then at 10 cents each.
Her mother suggested that she cut out the pictures of people she knew, who had been to her house.
Thompson's father was actor Lucien Littlefield, and the faces mat were familiar to her from their visits included those like Clark Gable and Joan Crawford.
From that moment on, she was hooked on clipping information on the famous, and for 47 years, she has spent an hour every day adding to her files.
The file has proved invaluable to cinema students and others who have used her extensive files for research sources.
Thompson, who is secretary to the general manager of the Fashion Island management office in Mission Viejo, will continue to add to the files, including the one on Wayne.
Thompson was in contact with Wayne, as with other celebrities as she prepared their files. Wayne, in appreciation for her efforts wrote.
“One of many am I that congratulate you for the your dedication to the 'then and now’ of an industry we love.”
She is now working in a file on the late big band leader Glenn Milier, which his friend and fellow bandleader Tex Beneke will contribute to.
THE DUKE — John Wayne strides forward to conquer criminals in ‘Rio Bravo.