Yes, there are a lot of people who would like to be able to work on a computer at home. But would they really want to carry one back from the office with them? It would be much simpler to take home a few floppy disks tucked into an attache case. For the majority of consumers, a second computer for the home office is usually an inexpensive clone of the one at work. Not only is such an alternative more convenient, but it is more cost effective as well. In fact, one ends up with better technology.

Consumers have passed judgment. Convergent Technology allowed its laptop to sink into oblivion in June of this year. I.B.M. never legitimized the market with its much rumored ''Clamshell,'' probably because the company realized that laptops are a small niche market, not a mass market. Hewlett-Packard, Panasonic, Data General and, of course, Tandy, which started it all, are still producing their laptops, albeit with the almost unreadable liquid crystal display, or L.C.D. Sales, however, are a fraction of the optimistic projections made only a year ago by industry soothsayers.

One key to greater consumer acceptance is better display. It is is available in the Gridcase laptop (from the Grid Systems Corporation, Mountain View, Calif., 415-961-4800), which offers a gas-plasma display quite different from - and in some ways better than - the standard cathode-ray tube display. The display does much to make the Gridcase the only battery-powered laptop currently worth considering. But it costs $4,350, without the recommended maintenance contract and the requisite software, which together easily bring the total price up to $6,000 to $7,000, or even more.

Software is the real weak spot for laptops. If the machines were merely too expensive, especially in view of their limited display, they would still sell if they served an unbeatable function. But for that to be the case, special software would be needed. The word processing and spreadsheet packages commonly available for them are intended to accomplish tasks to which laptop computers are simply not well suited.

Where these machines could shine is in such specialized field applications as those required by the military, the Internal Revenue Service, accountants and sales representatives. The largest of these markets is probably sales, and special software to meet the needs of sales representatives is beginning to dribble into the marketplace.