Hi-Yo, Silicon!

Texas’ glory, till now based on oil, may be based on silicon in years to come. The following four articles examine high tech in the state and where it is headed.

Birth of a New Frontier

Hundreds of new computer companies have made Texas the likely successor to California’s Silicon Valley, and it all started with two firms in Dallas.

by Harry Hurt III

Death of a Computer

Four critical mistakes forced Texas Instruments to pull the plug on the home computer that it had once expected would dominate the market.

by Joseph Nocera

It’s a High-Tech Life

While most people are using their computers to balance their checkbooks and play games, these three Texans are pushing their machines and programs to the limit.

by David Kramer

Look, Ma, My Computer Did It!

See the future on your computer: software on stocks, football, and astrology.

by Scott Lubeck

The Ponytail

Warm spring days call for giving in to new clothes and a neck-baring hairdo.

by David Seeley

The Hub Cafe

It wasn’t the classiest place in Pharr to grow up, but it had tough truckers, sassy waitresses, and some of the best try cooks in the Valley.

by William J. Helmer

I Opened Tax Returns for the IRS

Behind the scenes at regional headquarters—a sometime part-timer tells all.

by Martha Ebersole

Western Art: The Great World-Rim Being

A fresh interpretation of a classic genre.

by Anita Kunz

Texas Primer: The Yellow Rose of Texas

If it wasn’t for the song, no one would remember Emily Morgan, but she launched a nation by diverting Santa Anna at San Jacinto.

by Stephen Harrigan

Behind the Lines

Texas in silicon.

by Gregory Curtis

Art

Light in the Hills

German landscape artist Hermann Lungkwitz saw romantic vistas in the Hill Country at a time when most Texans saw only hardscrabble farmland.

by Michael Ennis

Theater

Alley of Aspirations

Houston’s well-heeled Alley Theatre is trying to pass itself off as a national theater. Across town, the Chocolate Bayou is just trying to hang on.

by W. L. Taitte

Movies

Bait and Switch

Against All Odds promises love, delivers yawns. Entre Nous repels rather than attracts. Footloose and Reckless aren’t. This is Spinal Tap is painless.

by James Wolcott

Software

Programming Your Taxes

The first in a series of software reviews looks at tax-preparation packages.

by Scott Lubeck

Weather

Winter’s Travail

When the Rio Grande Valley’s balmy breezes turned frigid last winter, its aloe vera fields and stately palms turned from lush green to pitiful brown.

by Barbara Rodriguez

Reporter

Texas Monthly Reporter

A heated race for the Senate; a leisurely trip to Astrotown; a cool master of Dallas protocol; a steel-industry success story in Seguin.

by Joseph Nocera

Roar of the Crowd

Watching the news, rating the crews, holding down the fort.

State Secrets

Gary Hart’s rise hurts two Texas politicos; at last, a solution to the South Texas Nuclear Project mess; the all-new Braniff turns out to be the same old Braniff; a delicate question about doctors.

Edited by Paul Burka

Touts

Country pleasures.

by Patricia Sharpe

Puzzle

Toss of the coins.