The Pilot does not even have a keyboard; users rely on hand-writing recognition and hook up the device to their PC's to download data or electronic-mail messages.

But internal Microsoft electronic-mail messages released this week by the Justice Department seem to cast doubt on these defense arguments.

On the campaign trail, his people regarded laptop personal computers as casual tools of everyday life, plugging them into computer bulletin boards and firing off electronic-mail messages around the country.

In some classes, the first assignment is to send an electronic-mail message to the instructor, because all future course work will be done electronically.

The Newton Messagepad, said several executives who have used early models, can keep appointments, notes and other similar kinds of information, in addition to sending faxes and electronic-mail messages.

Don't give out personal information in an electronic-mail message unless both the parent and child are sure of the identity of the recipient.

The surge came in part because some employees at the Microsoft Corporation, based in nearby Redmond, had mentioned the deal in electronic-mail messages, he said.

Hundreds of consumers of the on-line services, both operated by the Starwave Corporation, received an electronic-mail message telling them that access to their credit card numbers had been gained.

In an electronic-mail message to the Wired staff that landed on the Internet last fall, he complained of "shoddy, if not malicious stories" about the proposed Wired offering.

Mr. Clinton has been known to receive electronic-mail messages and respond to them off-line, when he has time.