Technology

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Electronic mail isn’t new – large companies have linked distant offices with computerised messaging services for some years.

Apart from the fact that it is the only system where you pay to receive “mail” from someone else, it has some intriguing advantages – and disadvantages – in what the jargon would call “asynchronous communication.”

Hook your micro computer up to the telephone with a suitable form of “acoustic coupler” – a device with rubber cups which fit over the earpiece and mouthpiece.

This encourages those who wouldn’t dare to say something direct to your face (and who don’t have anything serious enough to say to commit it to a formal, written memo) to send you “brazen” messages.

It reduces the constant distraction of the telephone – unless something’s urgent and needs a discussion, you send an electronic note and the recipient can read it – or ignore it – at his leisure.

This is relatively cheaper than using the ordinary international telephone lines because the host computers only use fractions of a second to send your message once it has “reached” the nearby exchange, interweaving it with hundreds of others.

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