Testing a Supplement--Via Computer : Telecommunications: It offers more stories than the printed version, but use is minimal.

Some people working on the electronic newspaper of the future see it as a replacement for the conventional, ink-on-paper newspaper.

Not Denny Dressman.

Dressman, managing editor for administration at the Rocky Mountain News in Denver, sees his paper’s computerized “A la Carte” edition as a value-added supplement to the daily paper.

“We want to give our current readers another reason to stay with us,” Dressman says. “We want to give non-readers a reason to become our subscribers by offering them essentially two newspapers . . . an afternoon electronic newspaper and a printed morning newspaper.”

“A la Carte” is a separate, computerized edition of the paper, available without charge to daily subscribers since Oct. 15. Subscribers who take the paper only on Sunday or only during the week are charged $3.50 a month for “A la Carte.” The computer software needed to receive “A la Carte” is free, and there are no time charges or connection fees.

“A la Carte” is first made available to computer users about noon each day. The next day’s classified ads are made available between 6 and 7 p.m.

“A la Carte” is updated throughout the day, providing more information on virtually every subject than the printed Rocky Mountain News, Dressman says. One day recently, there were 22 “A la Carte” stories on education. Every day, a section called Total Sports includes every sports story that comes into the paper from various wire services. If a Chicago Cubs or Detroit Tigers fan living in Denver wants to read about his team in detail, it’s there; the printed paper might carry only a line score and a paragraph.

“A la Carte” users must have a graphics monitor, preferably in color, to receive the edition’s special maps, charts and other illustrations. These illustrations make reading on a computer screen more inviting, but they also make access slower. Transmitting an illustration bit by bit from one computer, over the phone line, to another computer takes much longer than transmitting simple text, and the delay can seem agonizingly long for someone accustomed to quickly scanning a newspaper or doing most other computer operations.

On a Times computer with a 1,200-baud modem, for example, it took 90 seconds for a reporter to get fully connected to “A la Carte” and another 30 seconds between the time he hit the key to bring the “A la Carte” index to the screen and the time the index, with all its listings and illustrations, was fully available for the next command. Then the reporter had to strike another series of keys to summon a specific story and wait again while that story and its graphics appeared.

The same steps take about half as much time on a computer with a 2,400-baud modem, but relatively few home users have such high-speed modems, and most computer users are accustomed to getting what they want in just a few seconds or fractions of a second, faster than even a 2,400-baud modem makes possible.

Indeed, the News has made several changes in the “A la Carte” edition since its debut, trying to speed it up in response to many complaints from users.

“What users most want out of any kind of electronic information system is speed,” Dressman says.

That probably helps explain why only about 4,500 of the paper’s 360,000 daily subscribers have begun using “A la Carte.”