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Show How-to books: you, too, can strike it rich Buie !SM Business Computer i.v Frankl vnn Petrrwon and Judy K-Turkel I W onder what really goes on inside I the executive suites and assembly I lines of computer companies? I Several books claim to unmask the I Golden Gcds of Computerdom. I Trying to speculate on the future of I Silicon Valley and its products? I Some authors claim they can help I make you rich. I The JBig Score, by Michael S. I Malone, is 50 percent high-tech I gossip, 50 percent computer history, I 50 percent California chic and 50 I percent insight into what makes I and breaks computer companies. I Sure, it adds up to 200 percent, I because from Malone's outsider- I peeking-in perspective it all looks I bigger than life. I For a sample, here's how he I describes the making of integrated I computer chips. "The process only I seems straightforward. In reality the I entire operation has about as much I built-in voodoo and superstition as a I major league baseball team. No one I is even quite sure why "yield rates" 1 (the percentage of good chips) are I what they are. Thus, when they I suddenly fall, there is general panic. I When they rise, fabrications mana- I gers scurry about trying to find the I magic key... One of the women wore I a silk blouse that day? Then she'll I wear it every day. Someone else I used his left hand rather than his I right to dip the wafer in acid? Then I from now on he's a southpaw." I Whether you think you missed 1 your chance at fame and wealth by I not writing that great computer I program or whether you're still I waiting to join the computer I generation, this hardcover Double- experimental technology that will be used by designers of tomorrow's computers. They also try to size up how well coming U.S., designs will measure up to Japanese innovations. Except for international movers and shakers like Hewlett-Packard and IBM, you won't find many names you know. Apply, Commodore, Kaypro, and Micropro aren't even in the index. For intriguing commentary on those much-talked-about Japanese marketing strategies, pick up The New Competition by Philip Kotler, Liam Fahey, and Somkid Jatusripi-tak Jatusripi-tak (Prentice-Hall, $19.95 in paper). Their unhappy conclusion: the Japanese will leave U.S. computer makers at the bottom of the bay. Subtitled "What Theory Z Didn't Tell You About Marketing," the volume reads halfway between a how-to and a war college text on how-not-to. The authors will answer questions and send a checklist of available back issues. Send a stamped, self-addressed self-addressed envelope. Comparative details on computer price and performance are found in a new 4,000-word special report, "Your Personal Computer Buying Guide." For your copy, send $3 for Report FP02, in care of the Park Record, P.O. Box 3688, Park City, UT 84060. Make checks payable to Newspaperbooks. You can read back issues of these columns on NewsNet's on-line data base for details, 1-800-345-1301. (c) 1985 PK Associates, Inc. Distributed by Tribune Media Services, Inc. day book is worth its $18.95 price. While--Malone focuses on the personal fortunes that've been made in California's golden valley, much of it by backers of failed computer products, David H. Rothman is impressed by corporate success. In The Silicon Jungle ($3.95 in Ballantine's business paperback series), Rothman gossips about familiar programs and machines like Wordstar, Perfect Writer, Select, Kaypro, Osborne, dBase n and InfoStar. Rothman told us he sees the book as a help for folks who are agonizing over computer or program purchases, but we'd recommend it just for a breezy behind-the-scenes look at some of the better known products. If you need an antidote for a friend who's a pot-of-gold enthusiast and is falling for the latest pitch from a start-up claiming to be another Lotus or Apple, buy one of the few remaining copies of the almost-out-of-print The Coming Computer Industry Shakeout by Stephen T. McClellan ($19.95, Wiley). For W all Street pros, there are no surprises in McClellan's advice on how to study a company's balance sheets, income sheets and management manage-ment backgrounders. For computer insiders, there are no surprises in who he" singles out as potential (but high-risk) moneymakers and money-losers. money-losers. Read carefully and you'll see that although his subtitle, "Winners, "Win-ners, Losers & Survivors," would lead many to expect a laundry list of buys and sells, he's hedged his writing like smart investors hedge their Wall Street bets. McClellan's book is silver-covered. The subliminal message is even more confident on gold-covered Silicon yalley Guide to Financial Success in Software by Daniel and Paul Remer and Robert Dunaway (a Microsoft $19.95 paperback). It delivers some amazing if not really instructive success stories, like the ones about the fellows who marketed EasyW titer and the brothers who control rich-on-games Broderbund. It's also heavy with advice on how to negotiate computerdom's rapids and shoals if you plan to make your fortune with the program . To read about a much different part of the computer marketplace, get The Fifth Generation : Artificial Intelligence and Japan's Computer Challenge to the World by Edward A. Feigenbaum and Pamela McCor-duck McCor-duck ($3.95 in Signet paper). The authors tour you through the |