Microcomputer software for online information management: an overview

This paper summarises the findings of a critical overview to be published in 1988, of more than 200 programs for online information management. The programs are classified as follows: —Software for terminal emulationl(tele)communications/uploading/ downloading, mainly to communicate with remote computers such as databanks, and to aid online searching of databases. —Software to reformat/convert the captured information automatically, so that is can be loaded/imported in databases managed by a program of the next category. —Software for the local, in‐house storage and retrieval of text information to manage the received and reformatted information, as well as other manual input. —Software for word processing to process text information in addition to programs from the categories mentioned above. Programs for microcomputers which can run the operating system PC‐DOS/MS‐DOS received most attention.