INDUSTRY-BY-INDUSTRY OUTLOOK : The Year in Preview

California came several years late to the nation’s economic recovery party, but the state should be celebrating all through 1997.

Here is what key industries will be up to:

COMPUTERS: Next year is likely to prove more difficult for Internet start-ups expecting to cash in with initial public offerings. After setting a torrid pace in the early ‘90s, PC makers should find it harder to register new sales since most affluent households now already own a computer. Expected to further slow PC sales are set-top boxes that will turn a television into an Internet surfer.