Home Improvement

By Peter West

In the corner of a small, bright room decorated with basketball posters and anatomy charts, a computer printer pumps out a replica of the El Salvadoran flag. As the first band of blue emerges, Luciano Calles beams, smiling at his wife and two sons. "Play the national anthem now," he tells 14-year-old Juan.

"I couldn't imagine it--being able to hear my national anthem on the computer," says Calles, who emigrated with his wife from El Salvador in 1980. "It brought tears to my eyes."

That was more than three years ago, but the personal computer, with its graphics and audio capabilities, still amazes the Calles family. Their amazement is coupled with a sincere appreciation for the personal computer, which Bell Atlantic Corp. gave Juan in the summer of 1993 as part of an unusual technology trial sponsored...