HOME BUSINESS REQUIRES SEPARATE SPACE, EQUIPMENT : CAREER PATH.

Byline: James Coates Chicago Tribune

More and more Americans are doing business out of their homes, but many haven't really thought through what it takes to work at home successfully. Here are a few pointers:

For family sanity, the home office must be separated from the family's living space, and it should have two telephone lines dedicated to business. One phone is for faxing, and one is for going on line with a modem. Both can be used for voice calls.

While most modern personal computers offer built-in fax software, there will be potentially costly conflicts if you are waiting for a fax and trying to get data from the Internet or trying to make business calls with only one line for fax, data and voice.

A $300 stand-alone fax machine is well worth the tariff.

For a multimedia personal computer, you should have either a Power Macintosh or a Microsoft Windows 95-based system. It should have a chip speed above 100 Mhz, a 28.8 kilobaud modem, a 4x CD-ROM reader and a high-resolution monitor. Figure a bit less or a bit more than $3,000 for an optimal PC.

An e-mail account through America Online, CompuServe or Prodigy costs $20 or less per month and is well worth it.

Home business software is best acquired as a package, notably Microsoft Office 95, WordPerfect 7 Suite or Lotus Smart Suite. Costs are about $500, although upgrade and rebate deals always can be found. Mac users also should consider Claris Works.

If you generate lots of paper, you're far better off with a laser printer because of speed. Lesser needs for paper can be met by a much cheaper ink-jet printer or even a color ink jet.