It's sound - and safe - to turn off that computer

Most businesses, in efforts to cut energy costs, have embedded in employees' minds the importance of turning off lights at day's end. Now in this age of electricity-hungry computers, it's also important to zero in on equipment. Switching off cathode ray terminals (CRTs) - 1,430 of them - during non-operating hours is saving Security Pacific National Bank, Los Angeles , more than $103,000 a year.

Gale Owen, senior information systems officer at Security, figured turning off each terminal would save his bank $72.55 annually in electric bills.

Leaving terminals on stemmed from the belief that to shut them off would cause damage to components and other problems. Southern California Edison Company, in Rosemead, was called in to test 40 terminals, using another 40 as a control group. The utility found terminals were not damaged by turning them off and on regularly.