in the last four years, i have bought two personal computers... both times i paid around $3000 by the time I added in all the peripherals -- and each time i cringed as i saw the price plummet within months of my purchase as faster computers arrived on the market. its a frustration that has kept millions out of the home PC market -- whatever you buy it'll cost around 2 thousand dollars, and be out of date and half the price in a year. add in the fact that everytime microsoft and others rewrite your favorite applications and operating systems you have to upgrade your computer... and you have an extremely user- unfriendly environment.

larry ellison wants to change all that. the oracle corporation chairman, along with industry players like ibm, compaq, and sun microsystems want to drop the price of a pc by thousands of dollars, and bring online access to the masses. Ellison's idea is to break microsoft's hold on the Windows home computer market by introducing a 500 dollar PC in the summer of 96.

Many consumers were rightfully optimistic when they heard the media-hype surrounding these cheap computers. at last, salvation from high prices. and even better, the software for these 500 dollar computers would be stored out on a central system somewhere. you rent it for a time, and if, for example, an upgrade to microsoft word comes out, you aren't left holding a dead program. you don't need an ever- expanding hard drive since all of your files are stored somewhere else. and forget needing to spend hundreds to upgrade your hardware and software for windows95 or apple's system 8... larry ellison's vision for the networked 500 dollar PC includes a 15 dollar operating system you'll buy from Oracle

those of you thinking this sounds an awful lot like the 70s are right -- Back before IBM and Apple came out with PCs, we all shared programs with our co- workers and stored our files on a central mainframe computer. and when it went down -- which it always did -- we all fought over the few remaining typewriters.

the other problem with mainframes was that harry homeowner had no way of getting access. only large corporations could afford these behemoths. these days, high speed modems and the internet have made it possible to bring this paradigm back: and lots of us didn't ask for its return. kind of like bell bottom jeans.

trouble is, the 500 dollar PC is not a reality. sure there may be a working version at oracle, but its a box with no hard drive, no monitor, no floppy drive, no speakers. maybe it'll have a keyboard and a mouse, but don't bet on it. add those "options" and you're creeping ever closer to that 2 thousand dollar mark. The 500 dollar PC backers say you're supposed to hook it into your TV, so you don't need to buy a monitor. But take a good close look at your tv sometime... you'll notice right away that not so subtle blur -- it wasn't designed to display text. its hard to imagine they're serious about users hooking up the TV to this 500 dollar PC... Then again, these are the same people who actually think americans want interactive television.

alright, so some people backing the 500 dollar PC are now saying its the business market they're after, not the home consumer... but businesses have shifted rapidly away from mainframes for most applications... also, corporate america's slow response to windows 95 shows these folks are not always the early takers for new technology.

or maybe the market for this cheap pc are those people who don't already own a personal computer... the people afraid of buying obsolete hardware. Could be, but i think for these people, buying a computer is a cultural problem not an economic one -- that is, they're not so convinced they *need* a PC.

don't get me wrong, i think prices on home PC's are artifically high and that a low cost, low risk computer is just what the world is waiting for.

If anyone can eventually make it happen its computer gurus like larry ellison and the others backing this idea. the problem is, none of the folks hoping to sell these 500 dollar machines has shown that there's actually a market out there for a dumbed down internet terminal. ellison is fond of saying his mom wants one of his computers. but in general, americans are not well- known for wanting less power under their control -- witness the Yugo -- they want more. consumers aren't asking for LESS computer, they just want to PAY less.

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rich dean is manager of new media development for the strategic interactive group in boston.... next time, rich will take us shopping for a real personal computer