![]() The Palantir word-processing programming has a demo that can do everything the real program does-including fancy printing. The demo disk for SuperCalc3, for example, first gives you an advertisement, in glitzy graphics, of the program's features, and then turns you over to the spreadsheet you can test it out to your heart's content. Another great advantage, for those who own computers purporting to be "compatible" with IBM, Apple, or whatever, is that the demo disk will settle for sure whether or not the program runs on your machine. I have tried about 15 demos over the past few weeks, and most of them have provided me a solid feel for how the program works and whether I want it. Like everything else, demo disks vary widely in quality, but on the whole, I would urge you to take advantage of these offers. #Demo disk archive software#The solution is called a "demo disk." For somewhere between $5 and $15 (usually refundable if you eventually buy the whole program), many software houses will sell you a version of the program that lets you give it a try. These problems won't be cured overnight, but the industry has recently developed a way to give customers a low-cost test run with new software. The poor software buyer is often forced to fork over hundreds of dollars on a wing and a prayer that the program will work for him. To make things worse, many computer stores are unable to provide facilities for customers to sit down and test a program for more than a few minutes-hardly enough to learn whether this is the software for you. For the moment, software is still much too expensive. This is a pleasant prospect to ponder in idle moments, of course, but it doesn't do much good if you have to choose some software right now. Sooner or later-a year from now, perhaps?-the program that costs $395 today will be on sale for $39.95, and the highest price for any piece of standard business software will be about $200 (as opposed to $800 or so right now). One thing that any observer of the personal computer industry will predict with a fair degree of certainty is that today's outrageously high prices for software will eventually drop. Reid Reid is a writer on the National staff of The Washington Post. ![]()
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