I never thought I`d be using a modem to place legal bets on the presidential election. Or to play bridge with a physicist from Berkeley, an actress from Los Angeles and a student from Boston. Or to buy and sell stocks and bonds. But recently some offbeat and intriguing ways of telecommunicating have debuted.
Of course, modems are still primarily used for sending files from one computer to another. For example, this article was electronically transferred from my home in the `burbs to Tribune offices in Chicago. Yet even if you never need to send a file, a modem is still a good investment, because a plethora of online services have sprung up to serve a variety of needs.
If you own a computer, you`ve probably heard of CompuServe and Prodigy, the two giants of the online world. But you may not have heard of some of the newer stars in the telecommunications galaxy.
A terrific sourcebook for exploring alternative online systems is The Electronic Traveller by Paul Waldinger and Elizabeth Powell Crowe (Tab Books, $16.95), which covers bulletin boards with such odd names as FidoNet, BIX and The Well.
None of the services mentioned in the roundup that follows is a bulletin board per se; instead, each is one of the newer or more unusual online services worth exploring.
Iowa Political Stock Market
The IPSM is the brainchild of a group of economics professors at the University of Iowa in Iowa City. It lets users win or lose real money by investing in the fortunes of political candidates, shares of whom you trade as if they were blue chips stocks or pork belly futures.
Until this year the IPSM, which is formally approved by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, was open only to members of the academic community. Now anyone with $5 to $500 can join in the fun. Currently the IPSM has two markets: a Presidential Market where you wager on the winner of the campaign, and a Derivatives Market where you bet on what percentage of the popular vote you think each candidate will get.
Shares are bought and sold in each candidate as if they were an over-the-counter stock, with bid and ask prices.
As of this writing, a share of George Bush costs about 54 cents, a share of Bill Clinton about 48 cents. Each share of the winning candidate will pay off a dollar after election day; the shares of the losing candidate will be worthless.
Of course, this unusually topsy-turvy election year has proved to be a boon for speculators on the IPSM. Shares of Ross Perot, once valued as high as 33 cents, are now practically worthless. When Perot was leading the polls, I bet heavily against him on the IPSM and made a killing. Thanks, Ross.
Likewise, people who bet on Al Gore to be Clinton`s running mate made a tidy profit, but those who banked on Bill Bradley lost their shirts. But that`s the fun of the IPSM, where prices change with the headlines.
On the down side, the IPSM has a rather clunky user interface, which often leaves much to be desired. And the long-distance calls to Iowa City eat into your profit-or increase your losses. But the bottom line is that the IPSM provides an entertaining education in the world of market economies, and it gives political know-it-alls a chance to put their money where their mouths are.
If you want to get in on the fun, contact the IPSM by phone at 319-335-0881 or by electronic mail at IPSM.
The Sierra Network
If you like the color and bright graphics of Prodigy, but miss being able to converse with people, then you`ll love the Sierra Network, which combines sensational graphics with social interaction.
TSN lets you play online games such as backgammon, bridge, checkers, chess, cribbage and hearts with other players from throughout the country. You can also join in multi-player arcade games such as Red Baron, PaintBall and MiniGolf. During the game you can ”talk” to each other by typing in comments. Or, if you don`t feel like playing a game, you can go online and just chat.
The games themselves are wonderfully executed, with a marvelously simple user interface that makes playing a snap. The color and sound on the games are of the high quality that users have come to expect on such Sierra products as the King`s Quest series. Of course, the quality of game play also depends upon your human opponents. But TSN has players rate themselves from 1 to 4 on each game, so it`s easy to find an opponent in your skill range.
One of the niftiest features of TSN is that all the players are represented online by color pictures of themselves. You assemble this picture yourself by specifying your gender, race, hair style, facial expression and so on. The resulting caricature doesn`t look exactly like you, but it comes fairly close. And it`s fun having a general idea of what the others online look like. Of course, you can adopt any persona you wish, so be warned: that drop-dead gorgeous 23-year-old blond sculptor from Boulder might in real life be a 49-year-old bald accountant from Flushing.
Another nice feature of TSN is the Complain button that is always on the screen. Many online services suffer from foul-mouthed nitwits out to ruin everyone else`s good time. But if anyone on TSN makes a comment that you find offensive, you can click on the Complain button and that person`s ID and remarks will be sent to the network`s system operator. People who are abusive or obscene are kicked off the service permanently. While there`s a rather unsettling Big Brother aspect to this feature, it does make for a much more wholesome environment online.
The major drawback of TSN is that the play of some games can be interminably slow. I played against one person who took at least a minute to play each card. TSN can`t control that, of course, but they should put in some features-such as claiming a hand in bridge-that would speed up play.
TSN has a flat subscription rate of $12.95 a month. For more information, contact TSN at 1-800-SIERRA1.
GEnie
If you`re looking for a full-service alternative to CompuServe or Prodigy, consider GEnie. This Avis of the online world tries harder. It spares users from the distracting graphics that slow Prodigy down to a crawl, and from the monolithic structure that makes CompuServe such a mystery to new users.
GEnie, from General Electric, offers the standard features on a major online service, such as travel reservations through EAASY SABRE, the Grolier`s online encyclopedia, electronic mail, and numerous special-interest bulletin boards.
But GEnie is also getting into multiplayer games in a big way, offering not only the usual fare like chess and backgammon, but also more unusual offerings like poker and Diplomacy. Some games, such as MultiPlayer BattleTech, offer sensational graphics.
One of the strongest appeals of GEnie has always been its sensible pricing; its flat monthly rate is just $4.95 (though some premium features have an additional cost of $6 an hour). For more information, call
1-800-638-9636.
America Online
Chicago Online
America Online is a full-service system like GEnie, and offers similar features, such as software libraries, games and user forums. But a special wrinkle of the service is Chicago Online, which, as you might guess, focuses on the Windy City.
Chicago Online offers a chat line devoted entirely to Chicagoland and offers bulletin boards featuring local news, business information and weather. A special forum called The Sporting Life is devoted to online debates about Chicago sports.
Chicago Online is a joint venture of America Online and the Chicago Tribune, and the presence of the Tribune is felt throughout the service. For example, you`ll find reprints of movie reviews by the Tribune Teen Panel as well as by Gene Siskel and Dave Kehr. Articles on everything from concerts to art galleries are reprinted from the paper.
The monthly subscription rate to American Online and Chicago Online is $7.95. For more information, contact 1-800-922-0808.
Smart Investor
Smart Investor is an ambitious but pricey program that debuts this month and bills itself as a ”24 hour-a-day, seven day-a-week personal financial counselor.”
Like Quicken and Managing Your Money, Smart Investor keeps track of your portfolio. Unlike those programs, however, it lets you go online for automatic updates of prices from a database of more than 15,000 stocks, bonds, mutual funds and money market accounts.
Once online, you can talk to investment professionals through electronic mail, and you can instantly place buy or sell orders through a discount broker. Each time you sign on, you are alerted to special news or events that might affect your holdings.
All of these features are integrated in a colorful user interface that is simple to use, though like Prodigy (with which it sometimes interacts), Smart Investor`s graphics at times add more style than substance.
To make money, though, you have to spend money. The Smart Investor software (which is currently available for just IBM computers) costs $99.95, and online charges cost $9.95 to $17.95. For more information, contact Reality Technology at 215-387-6055.
