NEAR-FUTURE MODELS TO EXPAND CONCEPT OF HOME COMPUTERS.

Byline: Evan Ramstad Associated Press 

The computer industry is constantly moving toward a Jetsons-style future, often taking several steps at a time. And over the next two years, the steps will be even bigger than the strides PC makers have made in the past.

Of course, paced chiefly by advances in chip design, personal computer makers will be offering faster machines and lowering the prices of existing models every six months or so.

But several new trends also will appear, including some that will make the public broaden its perception of computing.

PCs themselves will do more things. Already, Gateway 2000 sells a $4,000 system with a 31-inch monitor that also can serve as a television. And Acer includes a phone with its newest models while IBM has controls built into its home PCs for lights and other appliances.

Meanwhile, variations of the all-purpose PC, including devices that just do one or two things like browsing the World Wide Web or ordering a pizza, will become more common.

``The computer as we know it will not go away but there will be an entire new generation of computer machines dedicated to specific things,'' said Robin Raskin, editor-in-chief of Family PC magazine. ``They're going to take all different shapes and they'll cost a lot less because they'll do one thing well.''

For PC makers, developing new kinds of machines is important to maintain growth and market share - particularly since sales growth of traditional PCs has been faster overseas than in the United States, a trend expected to continue as the U.S. market reaches saturation.

A look at what consumers can expect in PCs over the next two years:

THE INSIDE STUFF

The rhythm of the computer industry is provided by engineers who keep figuring out how to design and manufacture chips that contain twice as many circuits as the ones they produced two years earlier.

This phenomenon has gone on since the first chip that could be mass-produced was created in 1959. Of course, the process becomes more wondrous each time it happens because the starting point is much higher.

From 1996 to 1998, the most popularly priced PC, ranging from $1,000 to $2,000, will move from a main chip with about 3 million circuits to one with about 6 million.

Two years ago, the chips that powered PCs costing $1,000 to $2,000 were from the last generations of the Intel 486 family and, in Apple Macintosh, the Motorola 68000-series. Their fastest speed was 66 megahertz (MHz).

Today's PCs are run by Intel's Pentium chips at 133 MHz, while Macintosh machines have PowerPC chips that run at 120 MHz. More expensive models have Intel chips that run at 200 MHz and PowerPC chips at 225 MHz.

In 1998, the typical PC considered by a consumer will have a new generation Pentium Pro or PowerPC chips running around 300 MHz, with the most expensive models run by chips at about 450 MHz.

During the past two years, the price and efficiency of PC hard drives and CD-ROM drives advanced at an even faster pace than microprocessors.

By 1998, hard drives will typically hold 3 to 4 gigabytes of data, up from 1 to 2 gigabytes now. And CD-ROM drives will have been replaced by digital video disk drives (DVDs), which will run today's CDs and also the new similar-looking DVD that can hold seven to 14 times as much data.

IN SOFTWARE

Many innovations in software are being driven by the Internet as people try to integrate the data they work with on their PC with the broader public network. New game programs, for instance, will allow users to play opponents through the Internet.

Microsoft Corp.'s Windows and Apple's Macintosh operating systems are being improved to bridge the gap between data inside and outside the PC - eliminating, for example, the distinction a user finds between working with a word processor and a Web browser. Apple has recently demonstrated significant advances in manipulating data inside a machine and some of that work will be available to consumers by 1998.

NEW DESIGNS

PCs now come in colors like black, dark green and dark purple instead of just beige. By 1998, some models may be trimmed in wood and laptops will have handles molded into the cases to make the machines more portable.

Hand-held computers such as U.S. Robotics' Palm Pilot and Apple's Newton also will be reshaped and take on new functions.

``There is the need here for not only changes in styling but changes in the way that functions are packaged,'' said Jose Garcia, vice president and general manager of consumer desktop systems at IBM.

His company will unveil a PC in a few weeks in which the disk and CD-ROM drives are in a unit at desktop level while the guts of the machine are stored elsewhere.

FLAT PANELS

Although unlikely to make a difference to consumers by 1998, a growing trend in computer sales to businesses is the replacement of bulky computer monitors with sleek flat-panel screens, similar to those in laptops. They use less energy and require less cooling.

The New York Stock Exchange has replaced the monitors that hang above trading specialists with flat panels.

Compaq uses a flat-panel display on a new PC shaped like a boom box stereo. And some Japanese companies will have flat-panel TVs, although built with different technology, out late this year or in early 1997. They will be priced around $5,000.