ABSTRACT
A few broad generalizations can be made about four areas of microelectronics technology that are likely to prove of increasing interest to less developed countries over the next few years: data communications, expert systems, intelligent interfaces, and videodiscs. Expert systems, like the intelligent interfaces, are products of a computer science discipline known as artificial intelligence. User interface" is a term that encompasses ail of the ways in which a computer and a computer user communicate with each other. It includes the input and output hardware of the computer, the video display and the keyboard, and the disk drives and the printer. The video disc represents a new technology for the storage of large amounts of data, visual and textual. New achievements in fiber optics technology threaten satellite based communications, especially in the busy North Atlantic corridor.
