AbstractThe micro‐computer is claimed to have lost its designation “Hobbyist” and to provide a real computing facility for professionals at low cost and high convenience. The authors have taken a number of decision‐making and forecasting systems and “translated” them to operate on a variety of micro‐computers including the Texas TI 59, the Sinclair ZX 81, the Commodore PET and VIC and the Apple II. Experience in operating the “translated” programs on the small machines has shown perhaps surprising advantages over the main‐frame versions from which they were devised.The paper is in two parts. In the first part the use of micro‐computers is discussed in the light of our experience and in the second part the operation of the programs is explained. The use of standard software packages in R&D is not discussed. The programs which are discussed with examples of their use are:MAUDE derived from the main‐frame decision analysis program AIDARELEVANCE a resource allocation ANALYSIS algorithmMARKOV CHAIN a stochastic ANALYSIS approach to forecastingCROSS IMPACT a policy analysis tool based on KISM Cross‐impact languageLINKAGE an extensio