March 21, 1985

The surprise decision by the International Business Machines Corporation to drop its PCjr again raises the question that has plagued the home computer business since its inception: Where is the market for such machines? As recently as Christmas, the industry thought it had found the answer. The market, all agreed, was moving away from $200 machines, such as the Commodore 64, to more useful machines selling for roughly $1,000, such as the Apple II and the PCjr. Now, the promised land seems to be a mirage. Even giant I.B.M. has indicated it does not want to try to make a go of it right now, and Apple Computer Inc.'s sales are sagging, forcing the company to close its factories for a week to reduce inventories.

Victor Posner, the Miami businessman, dropped a long-smoldering takeover attack against the National Can Corporation yesterday, and said he would sell his stock in the company to Triangle Industries for nearly $150 million in cash. In a prepared statement, Mr. Posner said he would sell the stock to Triangle under that company's $41- a-share offer for National Can's 10.2 million shares outstanding. He said, however, that if someone else outbid Triangle, he retained the right to sell his stock to the high bidder. Mr. Posner, who owns 38 percent of the National Can stock, did not say what he would do with the $150 million, but Wall Street traders thought the money might be used to bail out the Sharon Steel Corporation.

Consumer spending advanced at a healthy rate in February, but personal income rose at the slowest pace in nine months, the Commerce Department said today. Personal income rose only three- tenths of 1 percent, just half of the increase in January. Analysts said that some of the weakness in February was the result of bad weather, which forced plant shutdowns.

An article in Business Day on March 2 about computers in courtrooms misstated the net income of the Barondata company for the first nine months of 1983. It was $952,000.

It was the morning of the first day of spring, an occasion George T. Delacorte, the 91-year-old philanthropist, celebrated with a walk through Central Park and a visit to his own beloved Alice. Mr. Delacorte's Alice is, of course, the bronze Alice in Wonderland statue that he presented to the city 26 years ago and that has belonged ever since to all children who make the pilgrimage. ''I picked the finest spot in Central Park,'' he boasted as the back of Alice's head, her long hair shining in the sun, came into view at the north end of the Conservatory Pond, under a just-budding willow tree. ''I told the mayor if he didn't want it there I wouldn't do it.'' Alice was built as a memorial to Mr. Delacorte's late first wife, Margarita, who liked to read Alice in Wonderland aloud to the couple's six children. Mr. Delacorte's face lighted up yesterday at the sight of several children clambering up the steps he had built just for that purpose and onto Alice's lap. A nanny introduced a 4-month-old blond boy, and Mr. Delacorte offered his hand. ''Hi, Eric,'' he said amiably.