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Video

COMPUTERS AND VIDEO appear to offer an endless variety of combinations, as this month’s cover by Robert Tinney depicts. With an increase in higher-power communication satellites that require smaller, less-expensive user antennas and electronics, and with the melding of television receivers and microprocessors, we might look ahead to the day when worldwide person-to-person visual as well as aural communication is based on personal computers and not on a direct descendant of Mr. Bell’s original invention. “Bulletin Boards in Space.” described by John Markoff in the May BYTE West Coast column (page 88), may give way to worldwide electronic conferencing and conventioning by adding television cameras to the growing list of common personal computer user options.

Many videotex, work-alike, and other interactive cable-television-based systems already exist. With the proliferation of coaxial-cable interconnection and its high-speed data-transmission capabilities, more and more homes and businesses could be linked via computer-controlled video instead of the restricted-bandwidth, audio-frequency-based systems now in use.

Shopping via computer is already a reality in some areas. With television- or presentation-level graphics, perhaps complicated and expensive encoding schemes could become unnecessary because you might be able to view the person to whom your message is directed. And as Rich Malloy, our product-review editor, stated in the July 1983 BYTE in his introduction to the Videotex theme, the printing presses might stop and BYTE could be delivered to you electronically.

Though with us for over a generation, until recently hardware costs made computer and video interactivity limited and expensive. In recent years, dramatic advances in digital electronics and large-scale integration (LSI) have made personal computers, videocassette recorders (VCRs), and videodiscs available to anyone with a down-to-earth application or interest in learning. In this issue, we present articles on a wide range of topics related to computers and video.

Peter R. Cook’s article, “Electronic Encyclopedias.” explores something that all of the major encyclopedia publishers have talked about for several years: how to develop an “intelligent encyclopedia” that uses natural means of accessing and using knowledge. Included with this article is contributing editor Mark Dahmke’s look at “An Ideal Video Peripheral,” a glimpse at how personal computers and videodiscs might communicate more efficiently.

In ‘”televisions as Monitors,” Ken Coach describes some of the characteristics common to the new generation of television receivers that can double as microcomputer video monitors.

If you already have an inexpensive VCR with limited or no programming capabilities or are considering purchasing one. Cy Tymony’s “Computer Control of a Video Recorder” should be particulary interesting. This construction project enables you to use your micro as a programmable control center for your VCR.

Stan Jarvis’s “Videodiscs and Computers” takes a look at the videodisc industry, its evolution. and the myriad of companies and equipment facing personal computer owners.

As an example of what you can do with a CAV (frame-addressable) videodisc, Rod Daynes and Steve Holder designed a game around a generic version in “Controlling Videodiscs with Micros.” They used the videodisc support commands available in the Sony SMC-70 computer.

—Gene Smarte. Managing Editor

ELECTRONIC ENCYCLOPEDIAS

by Peter R. Cook

Interactive video technologies help explore “the realm of worthwhile knowledge”.

Peter R. Cook is vice president of creative services for Grolier Electronic Publishing Inc. (95 Madison Ave., New York, NY 10016). He is responsible for coordinating the development of that firm’s Multi-Component Electronic Encyclopedia, which is intended to combine videodisc and videotex technology. Cook spent five years at Arete Publishing Co.. producing the Academic American Encyclopedia.

ENCYCLOPEDIAS EVOKE special memories for most people. When you were a child, you probably did research for essays and class projects, looked for “naughty” words and pictures, struggled through dull facts about dead people, or discovered fascinating facts in articles from “Aardvark” to “Zygote.” Later on, maybe you used an encyclopedia to solve crossword puzzles, to help a child with homework, or to look up the location of a vacation spot or an unfamiliar country mentioned in the news.

Now there is a whole new range of associations that most people wouldn’t normally connect with an encyclopedia: on-line databases, videotex systems, and laser videodiscs—new interactive technologies that, at first glance, might appear to be the very antithesis of the traditional printed encyclopedia. But major electronic publishing companies are beginning to create a new generation of encyclopedias, powerful informational/educational tools that can interact through, and with, all of these new media.

As part of a long-range development plan, Grolier is creating a massive encyclopedic database of text and audiovisual materials that can be accessed and manipulated using interactive technologies. The two major components of this plan, the text database and the audiovisual database, currently are be- ing developed along separate but convergent tracks—one utilizes on-line or videotex technology, the other utilizes videodisc technology.

In this article, 1 will review both development tracks, observing from the publisher’s point of view how information is enhanced by delivery via new interactive technologies. But let’s begin with a look at encyclopedias delivered via a traditional interactive medium—the book. Though new technologies should not slavishly imitate those that preceded them, there is much to be gained by using the book metaphor for building the foundation of an information tool that utilizes the full power of interactive video technologies.

According to an entry in the Academic American Encyclopedia (AAE), a printed general encyclopedia “attempts to present the entire realm of worthwhile knowledge: the humanities and literature: fine, applied, and performing arts: science and technology: history and social sciences: critical issues such as bioethics and civil rights: and select data on significant places and persons.”

Mechanics and economics tend to limit the size of a printed encyclopedia’s “realm of worthwhile knowledge”: of necessity, the information itself is synthesized and summarized. Distillation and outlining of knowledge, along with broad coverage, make a general encyclopedia—whether it be in 1, 20, or 30 volumes—a useful reference tool.

The reference characteristics of encyclopedias are what brought about their rather unnatural, usually alphabetical, information structure. There is no inherent logic in grouping “Aardvark” with “Alvar Aalto” and “Hank Aaron,” although such curious juxtapositions often create wonderfully serendipitous discoveries. Diverse subjects are thrown together for no reason other than the fact that an alphabetical, dictionary-like organization improves access to information. Some encyclopedias still cling to the earlier thematic approach in which related information is grouped together. Thematic groupings make it possible for information to be viewed in a broader context, but highly specific facts are harder to locate.

Alphabetical encyclopedias compensate for the seemingly arbitrary arrangement of their articles by using in- tegrated cross-references that indicate the presence of related articles and draw connections between the various realms of knowledge. In its current (fifteenth) edition, the Encyclopaedia Britannica attempts to overcome the shortcomings of this alphabetic tyranny by breaking the set into three resources: Propaedia. a one-volume overview of knowledge; Macropaedia, a collection of in-depth articles (many of considerable length) on broad areas of knowledge; and Micropaedia. containing very short articles as well as discrete, specific facts. The attempt, however, is thwarted by the awkwardness of three integrated, but separate, resources.

While encyclopedias may have to struggle with the drawbacks of their own unique organizations, they also exhibit the positive characteristics of the printed book. Books are physical entities, portable random-access devices. Their organization is universally recognized: pages, chapters, tables of contents, prefaces, introductions, indexes, bibliographies, etc. They are the framework of written language. Other characteristics inherent in books let you browse through them easily and give you a sense of scale and place. You know how to navigate in a book.

But the book also has its limitations. It is a fixed medium: once printed, it cannot be changed. The only way for a user to update a printed encyclopedia is to buy a new one, write notes in the margin, or purchase the yearbook that most encyclopedia publishers issue annually to maintain the currency of existing sets. The information is also fixed in that it cannot be dynamically rearranged for the user’s convenience. Comparing all the articles on dinosaurs, for example, might require accessing more than a dozen volumes. Information access is also limited by the specificity of the article titles and by the quality of the index—nonindexed information is almost the equivalent of no information. Finally, no matter how descriptive the text or how informative the illustrations, no printed encyclopedia can capture the power of a place, person, or event more vividly than an audiovisual medium. Yet the printed encyclopedia is, and will continue to be, a highly valued information resource for most people.

Now consider an electronic encyclopedia that uses the full power of new interactive media and is designed to meet the needs of a new generation of users.

Electronic Reference Work.

In 1982, Grolier acquired the rights to the Academic American Encyclopedia, a new 20-volume general-reference work designed for use in homes and schools. Containing approximately 30,000 articles and 9 million words, the AAE is characterized by its currency and its short entry format (its articles have an average length of approximately 300 words). For us it had the additional virtue of being typeset entirely with computerized equipment, and thus it could be converted for on-line dissemination.

The electronic edition of the AAE has been in existence for two years and is currently available to over 250,000 online and videotex subscribers through existing information utilities. These include services such as CompuServe, Dow Jones News/Retrieval, BRS. Dialog, and Vu/Ttext. We also distribute through NAPLPS (North American Presenta-tion-Level-Protocol Syntax, or “nap-lips”) graphics-based systems: Viewtron, Keycom, and Times Mirror’s Gateway (which uses Telidon graphics, a forerunner of NAPLPS). Users accessing the encyclopedia remain customers of the information utility, which in turn pays Grolier a royalty.

The encyclopedia’s inherent data structure has to be adapted to the display characteristics and access protocols of individual systems. Because these system requirements have a considerable effect on how the user interacts with the encyclopedia, it is worth reviewing some samples at length, beginning with the less complex, and consequently less powerful, systems.

Viewtron: An ASCII/NAPLPS Hybrid.

Viewtron, operated by Viewdata Corp. of America (a Knight-Ridder subsidiary), is the first commercial videotex service to use NAPLPS color graphics, which can be accessed only by AT&T’s Sceptre terminal. This regional service is now available in just three Florida counties; if successful, however, the service will become available in major cities around the country.

Viewtron is a relatively simple menu-driven system that stores most of its databases on preexisting frames. However, because the AAE is a large database (by videotex standards), it is actually accessed through a communications gateway. The AAE text is housed on computers at Vu/Text (another Knight-Ridder subsidiary) in Philadelphia; the computers are linked by dedicated line to the Viewtron host in Miami. A user accessing the system is connected via the gateway as soon as he selects the AAE from a menu (see photos la through Id). The videotex terminal “paints” the appropriate NAPLPS frame, but it has an active window for displaying the ASCI! (American National Standard Code for Information Interchange) text from the Vu/Text gateway. The user is then prompted to type in a search term, which is matched against the AAE’s 30,000 article titles. If an exact match exists, the system displays the first 15 lines of the article and the user can “page” through the rest at his own pace. If the search term is too broad, a number of articles are selected. For example, if just “Lincoln” is entered for information on Abraham Lincoln, the system locates all articles with the word “Lincoln” in the title, including “Lincoln, Nebraska” and “Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.” The first article is displayed with the qualifier “1 of n [articles],” and the subscriber can then use the system’s “browse” function to scan the first frame of each article.

ASCII (Non-Graphic) Videotex Services.

Dow [ones News/Retrieval and CompuServe are both consumer-oriented information utilities that primarily use keyword and menu-driven access. A subscriber logging onto Dow Jones News/ Retrieval is guided to the AAE via names and enters a search term or query that is matched against article headings. If the search term is in more than one heading, the system generates a menu, listing all of the articles, and the user selects from this (see figures 1a through 1e). If the selected article is long, an additional menu (or series of menus) is shown, providing a numbered outline of the contents. Thus, the user can select the most appropriate section without having to page through the entire article.

Dow Jones News/Retrieval also lists the number of pages or screens of text in each article and lets the viewer know which page he is viewing (2 of 14, etc.). CompuServe gives each page an individual number, which can be used in conjunction with the GO command to go directly to the page, bypassing the intermediate menu stages. As useful as these features are, menu-driven systems are limited. Access is through the article title only, which doesn’t open up the full potential of an electronic encyclopedia.

Free Text Databases.

Two much more powerful on-line database systems are BRS and Dialog. Considerably more expensive than the consumer databases, BRS and Dialog use free text search procedures in which every word in the database is indexed and therefore can be searched.

When accessing via BRS, a search term or query is entered using the required command language. However, if the search term is not properly qualified, the system may locate far too many occurrences to be helpful. For example, a search for “Einstein” produced several hundred “hits” (occurrences) of the word in 69 articles throughout the encyclopedia (see figures 2a through 2c). But the search can be narrowed down by using Boolean operators such as and, which combines two search terms in the same article: same, which combines two terms in the same paragraph; with. which combines them in the same sentence; and adj. which requires the two terms be directly adjacent. If what I really want to find out about Einstein is when he moved to Princeton, I would phrase the search as: “Einstein same Princeton,” which means I’m looking for the paragraphs in which both of the words appear. This narrows the hits down to just two paragraphs, which can be quickly displayed. These paragraphs tell me that Einstein moved to Princeton in 1933 and that he died there in 1955.

This simple example doesn’t really illustrate the full retrieval capabilities of free text systems. They can be powerful tools in the hands of an experienced researcher or librarian. On the other hand, their complex command syntax and Boolean search logic make them too complex for easy access by most untrained users.

In an effort to broaden the appeal and usage of their services, BRS and Dialog have both introduced easier-to-use and less expensive off-peak services: BRS After Dark and Knowledge Index, respectively. Communications software is also being introduced; Sci-Mate and In-Search simplify command procedures and enable the user to develop a search strategy before going on line. Such efforts are the first steps in what will undoubtedly be a series of software products aimed at making these information utilities (including Dow Jones News/ Retrieval and CompuServe) more powerful and easier to use.

Earlier i used the printed book as an example of a medium with which we are manifestly familiar; the reason for our familiarity is that the structure and conventions of books have been evolving for centuries. On-line databases have been in use for little more than a decade, and it is only in the last two or three years that large numbers of untrained users have started accessing them. Consequently, the learning curve for everyone—system operators, information providers, and end users—is particularly steep. There is still much to be learned about how users interact with electronic information utilities, what kinds of displays are best, what accessing protocols and commands are most effective and easy to learn, and what information is most appropriate.

Enlarging the Database.

The electronic edition of the AAE is already quite different from its printed parent. Updated twice a year instead of annually, it has no physical growth limitations, unlike the printed work. We intend to use this essentially unlimited capacity for growth: to respond directly to users’ needs; to reflect areas of strong current interest; to broaden the database so it is more appropriate to different age and interest levels; and to develop satellite databases designed to interact with the encyclopedia.

Responding to users’ needs: An electronic encyclopedia has a unique advantage over its print counterpart because it is possible to “capture” such key parts of the information transaction as search terms and usage time. Analyzing the captured data can reveal shortcomings, whether in the form of inadequate article headings or missing information. Such data also reveals areas of high and low interest—a useful guide for database growth.

Reflecting areas of strong current interest: Printed encyclopedias contain little information of transitory interest. It will be a long time before the Britannica has an article on Michael Jackson. This isn’t necessarily because encyclopedia editors disdain popular culture. The physical limitations of the printed work make it difficult and costly to insert large numbers of new articles each year. Space has to be found for each new article, usually at the expense of other articles. Further, an article of fleeting interest may create a difficult hole to fill when its importance diminishes.

This is not the case with an electronic edition, in which articles can be added to and deleted from the database with considerable ease. For example, coverage of the Olympic Games and athletes can grow in anticipation of this year’s meeting in Los Angeles. Next year the coverage can be reduced. An electronic encyclopedia can be a truly responsive, dynamic reference work.

Expanding for a broader audience: In its present form, the AAE spans a wide range of age and interest levels. As stated in its preface, the AAE is “for students from junior high school, high school, or college and for the inquisitive adult.” By expanding that base to include young children and advanced scholars, the resulting database will be several times larger than the printed encyclopedia and will be capable of responding appropriately to the user’s age and interests.

Satellite databases: Grolier has recently completed the first of a series of satellite database products designed to interact with, and be enhanced by, the electronic encyclopedia. Whiz-Quiz is a menu-driven educational game that directs the player to the AAE to find out more about a topic. We believe that children in particular will be compelled by this mechanism to explore the encyclopedia.

The User Interface.

Regardless of what shape or direction a database takes, the key to its use and value is the user interface. The user interacts with the electronic encyclopedia on several distinct levels: entry level: logging onto a system and getting to the database search level: entering a search term to locate a specific article (or group of articles) retrieval level: once the relevant article is located, finding and retrieving the required information manipulation level: getting the information in the form of a printout, writing words down directly from the screen, or simply remembering the facts exit level: leaving the database The first and last levels are entirely the province of the system’s operator and, in any event, are not an obstacle to most users. The search and retrieval levels, however, are areas of major concern because that is where the user works most closely with the system. The information-manipulation level will become increasingly important as software is written to take full advantage of encyclopedic databases.

The best way to analyze potential improvements at the search level is to return to the book metaphor. As an access device, a book is very forgiving. When you look something up in an index, you usually don’t need to know the exact spelling to locate it. Likewise, you sometimes use a dictionary because you can’t spell a word but have no problem locating it.

Databases are not so forgiving. A misspelled search term, no matter how close to the correct word, cannot be used to locate the required article. Some systems attempt to overcome this by providing a function called truncation. On Dow Jones News/Retrieval, for example, all you have to enter for an article on Zbigniew Brzezinski is “BRZ—a nice feature, but not the complete solution. The problem isn’t just misspelling; children in particular tend to use plurals for certain common nouns: cats, dogs, trees, dinosaurs, etc. This is not a problem in a printed reference work; however, when entered on a videotex system, the search terms will fail to match the exact article titles, which are singular.

First-time users, especially children, make repeated errors when entering search terms. Analysis of the search terms for one of the videotex services reveals that about one-third of all terms failed to locate an article. In approximately 90 percent of those cases, the information existed but errors (misspellings, use of plurals, incorrect positioning of names) prevented the user from finding it, at least on the first try.

Clearly, the unforgiving nature of search-term entry on videotex systems is a frustrating inadequacy that can be improved by the system operators. At the same time, the information provider has a responsibility. Other aids to access are required. Current videotex systems allow only keyword access to article headings. There is no on-line index, and today’s videotex systems do not have the full text-indexing capabilities of BRS and Dialog. Clearly, the specific entry headings need to be broadened so that the same information is available via several different search terms. An on-line index would broaden access still further, especially when combined with a thesaurus function.

Free text systems are not restricted to keyword access. Rather, the user can focus his search language to a highly specific degree, examining the body of knowledge with precision. The price of that precision is a high degree of practice and skill.

In the long term, both keyword and free text access to large databases probably will give way to search languages with a high degree of artificial intelligence (AI). At present, when you search for information in an encyclopedia, particularly on videotex systems, you have to think about its likely location. You cannot interrogate the database, but this is exactly what you should be able to do, posing such questions as: Who wrote The Grapes of Wrath? How many Nobel Prize winners went to Harvard? Where do icebergs come from?

Answers to all these questions can be found eventually with current systems, but a fully developed database incorporating AI search techniques would take you directly to the sources.

Having located an article, the user begins to read it. The “window” into the encyclopedia’s massive database is a television or monitor. The text display (depending on the service and the end-user’s hardware) varies from 16 lines by 32 characters per line (approximately 85 words) to 2 5 lines by 80 characters per line (approximately 330 words). By contrast, the printed AAE contains 1500 words per page, and pages can be viewed two at a time. Clearly, current video-display technologies are capable of only the most myopic view of a large text database, which is why it is all the more important to be able to rapidly shift the view, to be able to browse and move around in an article quickly and easily.

But there is a need for other orientation tool§, such as sequential numbering of article pages (which Dow Jones News/Retrieval has) as well as individual numbering of pages (which CompuServe has).

A recent study of a group of eighth-graders’ use of the videotex AAE produced some interesting findings. While the students searched for articles and moved around in them with varying degrees of proficiency, they confined their activities to finding information rather than using it. They actually read and manipulated the information later as printouts, which could be studied at leisure, marked up, and incorporated into their research projects. In fact, I suspect that many of our users who have access to a printer do their serious reading in ink-on-paper form.

This doesn’t mean that no one reads text from the screen. Graphics-oriented videotex systems, such as Viewtron, are based on the assumption that subscribers will read from the screen. This is fine for news summaries. But the real utility of an electronic encyclopedia won’t be realized until people can access, manipulate, and reorganize significant amounts of information electronically using such powerful information tools as word processors, database managers, and graphics programs.

Electronic Knowledge Land.

Grolier is working on some of the refinements I have been describing. We believe that, having freed encyclopedia information from the artificial constraints of the alphabet and the physical constraints of the book, we should be able to reshape and reorganize that information. We want to put it to new uses. We want to create a reference tool that can interact with other information tools. Additionally, we’re trying to build a conceptual framework—an outline of knowledge—for intellectual pursuit and stimulation. At present, this new “knowledge land” is largely uncharted, although major landmarks are known. We hope that videotex systems will have the navigational tools to explore it fully, and that software producers will have created the manipulation tools to exploit it fully.

A Videodisc Encyclopedia.

The videodisc is another interactive medium that we believe is applicable to encyclopedia information. The ability to randomly access any frame, combined with the disc’s dense storage capacity (54,000 frames per side on a laser disc) and its inherent audiovisual properties, make it a particularly powerful publishing medium. As part of a joint venture with Long- man, a British publisher, Grolier recently produced a pilot disc. The pilot was developed as a test vehicle to determine how the organization, content, and audiovisual treatment of encyclopedia material might best be accomplished.

Long before the pilot went into production, we had concluded that we would need a lot of discs to encompass all the information contained in a general encyclopedia. This led us to ask ourselves how each disc should be organized so that it could be both a stand-alone information resource and a part of an integrated series. We decided to organize each disc around a specific theme or subject area. The pilot is part of what will eventually be a two-sided disc devoted to the human body (see photos 2a through 2c).

Each thematic videodisc will be a self-contained information resource. The discs will not attempt to be the equivalent of a printed reference work. Rather, each disc will “illuminate” knowledge areas, conveying through audiovisual means only the essence of a subject.

Designed for use with a standard consumer laser videodisc player under normal keypad control, the discs will become considerably more versatile resources under microcomputer control. While the number of combined microcomputer/videodisc applications has increased substantially in the last two years—applications that include training, point of purchase, education, and games—there are few truly “generic” discs for which software can be written.

Grolier is developing two electronic databases, one in text form and one in audiovisual form. These two databases are being developed separately so that each can take advantage of the separately developing markets for on-line / videotex and videodisc products. But both databases will ultimately be brought together (although whether through telecommunications or local mass storage is yet to be determined). The result should be an innovative informational/educational resource: an encyclopedia that is appropriate to the media and appropriate to the times.

An Ideal Video Peripheral by Mark Dahmke

As a software consultant, my major complaint with most of the popular videodisc players is that they communicate with computers very poorly. Typically, the videodisc player is treated as a printer or a plotter; the user has to deal with commands that may or may not be ASCII (American National Standard Code for Information Interchange) format and may or may not be logical and consistent.

The Discovision (now Pioneer) model 7820 had a command set that looked like a selection of random numbers. The codes to send the numerals 0 through 9 were: 3F. 0F, 8F. 4F. 2F. AF. 6F. 1F, 9F, and 5F. in that order. In addition, the 7820 had an IEEE-488 external interface that wasn’t compatible with most microcomputers. In an attempted remedy. Discovision built a serial converter box to change the IEEE-488 protocol to and from RS-232C levels. What they came up with was a protocol converter with a 1-byte buffer that could easily be overrun, erasing the last command before it could get to the player.

Even if the translation and protocol conversion problems are ironed out eventually, a programmer is still faced with a stiff challenge in trying to get the status and frame number back from the player. Some players won’t give out this information at all. Ones that do return strangely encoded bytes that take many instructions to untangle. On some players the frame number comes back as a 2-byte integer. on another it comes back as four ASCII digits in hexadecimal, and on still another it shows up as five-decimal ASCII digits. Any software expected to run on more than one model of videodisc player has to account for all of these differences.

Timing seems to be the worst problem with interfaces. Data sent to the player at serial-port speeds just can’t control a fast videodisc player in the manner required by modern interactive applications. Some new players offer parallel ports, but many computers (e.g.. the IBM Personal Computer) don’t support full bidirectional interfaces. IBM claims that its Centronics port is “parallel input and output.” However, if you check the circuit diagram, you will see that it isn’t. It is wired so that reading the port returns only what was last sent.

Newer videodisc players operate at floppy-disk and, in some cases, hard-disk speeds. Some have worst-case access times of 2 to 3 seconds. Within a year or two, I expect to see write-once, multiple-read videodiscs with interfaces to let them be used as archives. (Some current videodiscs can hold gigabytes of data.) For this to work, however, the interface will have to be smart enough to recover the stored data and fast enough to return it to main memory at magnetic-disk speeds. This technique can work, as shown by the fact that it is already being used in several hard-disk backup systems for videotape recording equipment. In these disk-to-tape systems, the data from the disk is recorded redundantly in the scan lines of a National “television System Committee (NTSC) signal, which is then recorded on videotape. While this prac- tice could easily be transferred to videodisc hardware, much of the videodisc would be wasted and not used to its full potential. The developing direct-digital recording techniques will remedy this problem by maximizing use of the disc recording surface.

Loading software into a personal computer from a videodisc as if it were a floppy disk would greatly enhance educational applications. For example, audiovisual and computer-graphics course material (all orchestrated by an authoring language) could be combined and loaded into a personal computer from the first part of a videodisc while just the audiovisual portion is stored separately on the remainder of the videodisc. A development system would consist of the videodisc player and other end-product hardware, but the graphics and curriculum-specific data, or “courseware.” would be developed on attached floppy-disk or hard-disk systems.

Figure 1 shows one possible hardware configuration for a first-generation intelligent player. The main feature of the design is the videodisc interface adapter, which would plug into an expansion slot on the microcomputer. The interface adapter gives the programmer tight control over the timing of the player and also controls the video overlay circuit.

As digital television and audio reproduction become affordable and popular (I estimate that this will take five to seven years), we’ll be able to define the formats that will let personal computers store and retrieve video images and sound. We’ll be able to create high-resolution computer graphics and synthesized music on personal computers and write it onto a write-once videodisc peripheral. We’ll then be able to play it back through digital television sets. Alternately, digital television images could be recorded from TV sets onto a videodisc and then retrieved. displayed, or processed on personal computers.

Figure 2 shows a second-generation interface built around digital television. As 32-bit processors become faster, and memory bandwidth greater, it will be possible to directly manipulate high-resolution images that come from the videodisc or are created directly by the microcomputer. The video output from the TV camera can be routed to a digital television for viewing, or the output can be held in the graphics frame buffer for further modification and processing.

Mark Dahmke. a contributing editor for BYTE, is a software consultant and heads MCD Consulting Inc. He can be contacted at POB 80266. Lincoln. NE 68501.

I’m a little confused about calling the object a star. N.G.C 4800 is actually a galaxy. Hubble was the one who proved, in the early 1920′s that these distant objects were outside the Milky Way and were in fact galaxies. Since they also refer to it as a nebula (which was sort of a catch-all term for blurry stellar objects at the time) I’m going to guess that it was just the reporter who decided it was a star.

I don’t know enough about solar spectra to be sure, but it seems like you wouldn’t be able to make a direct comparison of the spectra from a whole galaxy to that of one star. Incidentally N.G.C 4800 is actually 97.14 million light years away not the 50 million the article states.

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Photographs STAR Moving 4800 MILES A SECOND

Sitting with his eye glued to a telescopic camera for 45 hours, M. L. Humason, Mt. Wilson astronomer, has succeeded in setting a record for long distance photographs. The nebula on which he trained his camera is 50,000,000 light years away from the earth.

FOR 45 hours in total darkness, Milton L. Humason, member of the astronomical staff at the Mt. Wilson observatory at Pasadena, California, trained the world’s largest telescope toward a far distant point in the heavens and obtained a photograph of a nebula 50,000,000 light years away from the earth—a total of 300 quintillion miles.

While the actual picture of the nebula shows it to be only a pin point among other and less distant stars, what Mr. Humason actually pictured was one of the brightest nebulae in the heavens.

Due to the distance, the amount of light which reached his photographic plate from this nebula is so faint that ordinary telescopes cannot photograph its spectrum. Even the 100-inch telescope had to be held on it all night every night for a week before the inflowing waves of light could be gathered together in the world’s largest reflector and funnelled into an image strong enough to record the spectrum on a photographic plate.

While the nebula has no name, it is known as N. G. C. 4860, which merely means that it is number 4860 in the Mt. Wilson new general catalogue.

Mr. Humason worked in total darkness, because light from any other source than the object would have spoiled the picture. He pointed the telescope toward the object and a driving clock held it in the proper position despite the earth’s rotation. Without the driving clock the telescope would have moved with Mt. Wilson out of alignment.

While the driving clock is as accurate as clock works can be made, Mr. Humason kept his eyes constantly on the slit through which the focused light passes to the prisms and the camera, and corrected any wanderings of the image.

“The light entered the barrel of the telescope striking the 100-inch reflector at the lower end and was reflected back to a smaller mirror at the top,” Mr. Humason explains.

“This reflected the light down the tube again, bringing it to a focus at a slit under the eyes of the observer. Passing through the slit the focused light would strike a series of prisms which broke it into colors, and that is the spectrum I photographed. Falling for a long time on a sensitive photographic plate, even this very faint light finally made an impression.”

The spectrum of the nebulae, when compared with the spectrum of the sun, revealed that the object is moving away from the earth at a speed of 4800 miles a second.

“Interpreting this in the established way,” says Mr. Humason, “it would look as if the whole universe were exploding, scattering into space, entire nebulae flying away faster than shells from a cannon, but I don’t believe the universe is blowing up.”

While photographing this rapidly receding nebulae, Mr. Humason had to control the focus and the comparison spectrum, keep the temperature of the spectrograph exactly right throughout the night. Sitting in total darkness with his eyes on a slit of dim light little larger than a pin head, he worked levers and pushed buttons for seven nights without moving the photographic plate or losing sight of the faintly luminous spot in the sky. Here Mr. Humason brought romance of the heavens down to earth.

Mr. Humason and his fellow astronomers have been unable to determine whether the huge velocity—4800 miles a second —is real, or whether the indication comes from a slowing down of the light waves due to distortion in space, or to forces acting on the waves during their long journey to earth.

By the taking of this long distance photograph and other experiments at Mt. Wilson, the astronomers are attempting to test Einstein’s contention that the entire universe of space and time are curved. They are attempting to test it not mathematically, but by actual observation.

Mr. Humason’s long distance photograph goes to the very heart of the problem. The light by which the photograph was taken comes from the remotest region of the universe. It is not local light, not light radiated from within our own galaxy. It originates far outside.

Day or Night Deposit by Chute

RECEIVING bank deposits and carrying them through a steel chute to the vaults, a day and night depository service has been inaugurated by a bank in Oakland, California. Built into the masonry, the chute is wired with burglar alarms and is safe from possible theft. Women may safely deposit jewelry in the evening.

Pioneer Inventor Is Conducting a Radio Movie Station

DR. C. FRANCIS JENKINS, noted Washington scientist and pioneer in the field of radio vision, is now conducting a new high powered transmitting station near Washington, for the broadcasting of motion pictures by radio. Opening of his station was preceded by broadcasts from his laboratory for several months. The station was originally assigned to operate on a frequency of 2850 kilocycles with a power of 1.5 kilowatts. Dr. Jenkins has developed an instrument which changes the lights and shadows of the motion picture film into electrical impulses which operate the radio transmitter. The broadcasting equipment which is decidedly intricate includes a photo electric cell and a series of lenses for focussing.

HE MAKES DOUGH FROM DOUGH

By Roger Fuller

PLAY-DOH is that mildly-scented modeling stuff your kid works into demented shapes, then shouts “Daddy! Look!” It comes in colors and your little Leonardo can blend the putty-like dough to his heart’s content. The guy who makes the stuff has kids, too, and they can play with platinum yo-yos now, if Daddy wants them to. Play-Doh was originally a wallpaper cleaner young Joe McVicker inherited, with built-in headaches. Who wanted a wallpaper cleaner any more? “Aah, paint over it” was the popular cry of the post-war PTA set. The Cincinnati business was flat on its back and so was Joe, after an operation, when he got the Play-Doh idea from his little girl, who was pudging the dough by Daddy’s bedside. A field-test in a nursery school yielded suggestions that Joe color the putty and have it tested so nothing drastic would happen to any young customer who might suddenly eat the “rightnowsterous” he had modeled. Joe went ahead, and any proud parent of a very young sculptor knows the rest. Joe feels much better than he did and his once moribund business is grossing about $3,000,000 per annum. Inspirational? Back to your basements, dreamers! You may yet find a use for chewed bubblegum!

MlDEAS Come True

When these ideas were only on the drawing board. Ml predicted great futures for them. We were right.
BATTLEVISION

BACK in January 1952 Mechanix Illustrated ran a story called Why Don’t We Have Battlevision? In it we suggested that the generals of the future might be able to see the progress of battles on television screens from the relative safety of their headquarters. The series of photographs on this page show the U.S. Army using this very system to observe cadets during battle maneuvers at the United States Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. Mobile Signal Corps camera units at the front relay the complete television coverage of the sham battle back to commanding officers four miles away.

“Logs” from Sawdust

FOR many centuries the idea of saving waste materials for fuel has been put in practice, throughout the world. While large power plants, with automatic stokers, burn dust most efficiently, and sometimes powder coal on purpose, this is not true in homes. In Europe “briquettes” made of powdered coal with a binder, for stoves have been well known for years. Now an American inventor produces round “bricks” from waste wood products, put under a pressure of some 185,000 pounds to the square inch; forming hard, smooth sticks for the fireplace.

World’s First Red-Headed Cat

A CAT said to be the only one of its kind in existence was exhibited recently at the cat show at Croydon, England, by H. C. Brooke. Instead of one of the familiar cat colors of black, white, grey or ginger, this remarkable feline is dark red from head to tail, like a human head of deep auburn hair. Red patches or bands have been observed on other cats but this is the only individual, Mr. Brooke asserts, in which the coat of hair is entirely red. Just how the red-haired cat happened is not disclosed although assurances are given that no chemical trick is involved but that the animal comes naturally by its unusual hair. The animal is a full-grown male and shares the supposed quick temper of red-headed humans, being exceptionally inclined to bite and scratch. The red hairs are produced in the same manner as in human beings; that is by partial deficiency of the black or brown pigment granules.

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Our Earth as a Satellite Sees It

By W. G. STROUD

Head, Meteorology Branch Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA

The scientist who directed the development and launching of Tiros I, AMS/l’s historic weather satellite, tells of its exciting discoveries and its successors’ promising future THE WORLD has had its picture taken. For the first time in the millions of centuries that our planet has been whirling around the sun, we can see our home as it looks from a tiny companion in space. A man-made satellite, circling some 450 miles overhead, has photographed us not once but thousands of times.

Such spectacular panoramas as the view of Florida on the opposite page show our planet—its continents and seas, its clouds and storms—as never before seen by man except in his imagination.

Streaking around the earth at almost five miles a second, the American experimental weather satellite Tiros I (Television and Infra-Red Observation Satellite) has sent us an enormous number of pictures since Its launching on April 1; its two television cameras have snapped them as rapidly as one every 30 seconds. The 264-pound “hatbox” satellite has also reported continuously on its position, internal temperatures, angle to the sun, and even the condition of its instruments.

Spinning lazily on its axis, Tiros circles the globe once the engineers mounted steadily as “the bird” approached. A giant 60-foot antenna shaped like a dish locked in on the satellite and tracked it across the sky. A babble of signals flowed in, the ground equipment unscrambled them, and—in the familiar manner of a home TV set—”wrote” the pictures on the face of a screen, where a 35-mm. camera automatically photographed them.

In these pictures the maps we studied in our school days seem to come alive. The continents assume their familiar shapes; on page 299 the whole of Italy sprawls before us, the toe of its famous boot apparently poised to kick a cloud-shrouded Sicily into North Africa. The valley of the Nile, where ancient wonders sleep, twists like a dark snake beneath the modern wonder of Tiros I’s wide-angle stare (left).

Though the satellite was amazingly versatile, it could not change its line of vision, as you can by moving your head or eyes. Spin-stabilized like a gyroscope, its axis—and its cameras—pointed always in a single direction. As Tiros I orbited, there were times when the lenses looked out into space.

Solar cells—9,300 of them—spangled the satellite’s sides and top. Converting the sun’s rays into electrical energy, the cells furnished the lifeblood of Tiros’s instruments. But the career of an instrumented satellite on the hostile edge of space is pitifully short. Lengthy, unremitting exposure to the blazing sunlight could quite literally cook it, a key component could break down and silence it, or the annual orbit of the earth around the sun could throw it into prolonged shadow, causing its storage batteries to run down.

Future weather explorers, however, will be largely free of these disabilities. Some will boast infrared scanners capable of taking pictures in the dark; others will eye the earth constantly, turning very slowly to adjust their viewing axis. Once orbited over the poles, such satellites could keep weather developments in all parts of the world under surveillance. And, from an orbit 22,000 miles above the Equator, a single camera could continuously view one-third of the earth.

New World Opens for Weathermen Meanwhile, for meteorologists, Tiros I is uncovering a spectacular new facet of their science. Cloud formations are the chief quarry of its cameras, and these show up on film with remarkable clarity. On an early pass a thin trail of clouds scudding across Sudan and the Red Sea (page 297) suggested a jet stream farther north. A check of conventional weather measurements for the same day verified the presence of the elusive high-altitude wind current.

Time after time, in frame after frame, all sizes and complexities of storm areas appeared: A typhoon took shape off New Zealand, a cyclone in the Indian Ocean. Highly organized cloud patterns spiraled turbulently across 1,000 miles of the Pacific. Spiral formations, in fact, march through the pictures like a recurrent theme; ultimately they may provide us with a key to the life cycles of storms.

Scientists are still strangers in this curious, unmapped world of the topside of the sky. Extensive study and analysis, however, will enable meteorologists to relate these new observations to our present understanding of the earth’s weather. And someday the knowledge gleaned from satellites such as Tiros I will permit man to live at greater ease with the elements.

“The weatherman,” says Dr. Morris Tepper, Chief of NASA’s Meteorological Satellite Programs, “has been like the proverbial blind man who tries to describe an elephant by feeling its trunk. Now, for the first time, his eyes are being opened to a view of the entire animal.”

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ANNOUNCING NOVA

THE MOST SPECTACULARLY BEAUTIFUL NEW STAR IN THE COMMUNICATIONS GALAXY

THE SCIENCE FICTION OF YOUR CHILDHOOD IS THE SCIENCE FACT OF TODAY.

YOU ARE INVITED TO RESERVE THE PREMIER ISSUE NOW UNDER OUR SPECIAL INTRODUCTORY CHARTER OFFER!

“I am vitally Interested In the future, because I am going to spend the rest of my life there.” —Charles F. Kettering

You are invited to step into the future — your future —to savor every aspect of it, as it unfolds before you through the pages of a bold, new magazine —so visually stunning … so intellectually exciting … so extraordinary an experience… that nothing remotely like it has ever existed before!

NOVA What makes NOVA so special — so unique?

THE MOST BRILLIANT SCIENTISTS, THINKERS, AND WRITERS IN THE WORLD.

Each stunning issue of NOVA will be bringing into your home — and into your life – the thoughts, the dreams, the accomplishments of the men and women who have changed the course of history and transformed the world we live in. The roster of international luminaries who will be writing for you will include such notables as: ALVIN TOFFLER, BUCKMINSTER FULLER, STANLEY KUBRICK, RENE DUBOS, PAUL EHRLICH, BARRY COMMONER, CARL SAGAN, LINUS PAULING, LEWIS MUMFORD, FRANCIS CRICK, STEVEN SPIELBERG, GEORGE LUCAS, EDWARD TELLER, JONAS SALK, MARGARET MEAD, RALPH NADER, JACQUES-YVES COUSTEAU.

NOVA – THE FIRST MAGAZINE TO COMBINE SCIENCE FACT WITH SCIENCE FICTION…

Each issue will also bring you the superb science fiction of recognized masters such as: ISAAC ASIMOV .. . ARTHUR C. CLARKE .. . FRED HOYLE ..RAY BRADBURY … FRANK HERBERT … A.E. VAN VOGT . .. AND ROBERT HEINLEIN as well as the best of the exciting new writers.

THE ULTIMATE IN MODERN ILLUSTRATION AND PHOTOGRAPHY.

Visually, NOVA will be a truly extravagant feast for the eye. Printed on heavy enameled paper, it will reproduce the genius of world-renowned illustrators and photographers—all in colors so true, so alive, that they will seem to jump off the page.

You’ll find NOVA provides a window opening on the strange and exciting world of: Space Colonies, Cloning, Machine Intelligence, Regeneration, Lasers, Computers, Extrasensory Perception, Black Holes, The Origin of Life, Genetic Engineering, Fusion, Solar Power, Time Dilation, Aging, Life After Death, Ultrasonics, Chemical Learning, Transplants, Geothermal Energy, Behavior Modification, UFO’s and Other Extraterrestrial Phenomena, Tachyons, Holography, Weather Control, Anti-Matter, Superconductivity, Bionics, Microsurgery, Artificial Galaxies, Magnetic Bubbles, Future Farming, Dreams, Transmutation, Immortality, Molecular Clouds, Undersea Habitats, Interspecies Communication, Cybernetics, Nuclear Wastes Storage Coding, Natural Pain Killers, Cosmology, Extraterrestrial Life Come into the future with NOVA.

CLAIM YOUR COPY OF THE PREMIER ISSUE.

Comb on Tube Cap Applies Mascara

FOR applying mascara to eyelashes, an ingenious inventor has combined a miniature comb with the cap of the container. Saturated with cosmetic when withdrawn, the novel applicator is used as shown and then replaced, avoiding waste.

When this dust mop pad gets dirty.. .you just throw it away!

The new Bissell Disposable Dust Mop

The secret? … a spun cellulose pad which picks up even elusive threads and hair. Picks up dirt, doesn’t just push it around, like old-fashioned dust mops. And when one side of the pad gets dirty, you just turn it over, use it again… then, throw it away.

The Bissell Disposable Dust Mop is lightweight, too.

Use it on walls, ceilings, doorframes, around windows, any job above floor level. You get two refill pads with your dust mop and additional refills, three to a pack, are available. Pick up dust and dirt, don’t just push it around . . . with the new Bissell Disposable Dust Mop.

Clean, brighten, refresh rugs with… Bissell Rug Shampoo
So gentle, yet so effective for deep cleaning all rugs and carpets. Bissell’s heavy-bodied foam does it… gets after even deep down dirt. Just apply, let dry, then vacuum. Colors come out springtime fresh!

Best help for green thumbs! Bissell Garden Tools
Designed for feminine needs, of chrome-plated steel with smooth hardwood handles. Help you lick your toughest gardening problems! Also a complete line of tools for your husband … rakes, shovels, wheelbarrows.

Bissell Home Handbook of Gardening
More than 120 illustrated pages of basic lawn and garden care information, written in simple, everyday language. If you have a yard, you need this book! Newsstand price, $1.00… SPECIAL MAIL OFFER, just 50c. Send with name and address to: Bissell Inc., Grand Rapids, Mich. 49501.

…home-care ideas as new as your needs…

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U.S. Tries Alaskan Crabbing To Prove It Economical

TO PROVE that the Japanese are not the only fishermen who can catch crabs, the Fisheries Division of the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service last summer dispatched an expedition to Alaskan waters. The United States imports annually almost $4,000,000 worth of canned crab meat, much of it king crab caught near Alaska. American fishermen who have tried crabbing there in previous years have failed to make a profit because they did not know the hows and wheres of catching and canning the crabs. The fish and wildlife authorities hope that their venture will encourage Pacific Coast commercial fishermen to go after the king crabs, which grow so big that one claw makes several canfuls.

French Begin Development of Supersonic Airliner

Funds have been appropriated by the French government to develop a Mach 2.2 (1600 miles per hour) airliner to be called the Super Caravelle, capable of carrying 100 passengers up to 2800 miles at altitudes above 50,000 feet. A unique feature of the supersonic passenger plane is its curved delta wing which will contain fuel tanks and the four jet-engine pods. The plane is expected to enter passenger service by 1968.

3-D trip inside a drawing, via computer graphics

Slip this display device on your head and you see a computer-generated 3-D image of a room before your eyes. Move your head and your perspective changes, just as though you were actually inside the room. Architects could use the device to draw buildings in three dimensions; realtors could use it to show buyers the interiors of homes without even leaving the office. Dr. Ivan Sutherland, University of Utah, invented the device, essentially a computer-graphics version of the old stereoscope.

World’s First Jet Air Liner Makes Flight Debut

Britain jumped the global gun in the race for commercial air supremacy with a recent announcement that its giant de Haviland Comet, first all-jet air liner, had made successful flights. After nearly three years under construction in secrecy, the sleek, sweptback-wing craft has been unveiled. Above, it is shown in its first test flight at Hatfield, England. Four Ghost turbojet engines, each developing 5,000-lb. thrust, are designed to give the jet liner a cruising speed of 500 m.p.h. A pressurized cabin will permit it to fly at 40,000 feet. Expected to be in commercial use by 1952, the Comet will carry 36 passengers and a crew of four. Sixteen of the planes are being built.

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Introducing Audi.

The revolutionary new car from Germany that moves, stops, turns, etc., differently from every car on the opposite page.

Almost every car in the world moves by means of the rear wheels pushing it.

The Audi moves by means of the front wheels pulling it.

Most cars’ front brakes (whether they be drum or disc) are located on the outside of the axle just inside the wheel hubs.

The Audi’s front brakes (which are disc, by the way) are located towards the middle of the axle.

Most cars turn by means of a series of gears and levers.

The Audi turns by means of gears alone.

Most cars also do other major things the same way.

While the Audi does most of them another way.

What it all adds up to is this: The advanced automotive principles that German engineers used in designing this car make it perform like nothing you’ve ever driven before.

And we’re not talking about subtleties. But differences that will be apparent to you the moment you drive the Audi out of the showroom.

Which is what we’d like to invite you to do right now: drive an Audi out of the showroom and around the block a few times. (You can find out where your nearest Porsche-Audi dealer is by calling 800-553-9550 free. Or, in Iowa, call 319-242-1867 collect.)

It’s quite an experience.

Audi

There has never been a television series that actually helped preschool children get ready for school.

Now there is.

On SESAME STREET, he’ll learn the alphabet, for instance. How to count—and how many is 2 or 3 or 4. What words like up & down, over & around mean. How to begin to reason. And how he is different from a lizard or bear or the child next door—and how like them too.

SESAME STREET is designed to give your youngster confidence and a surer success in school. More than a hundred leading educators, psychologists, communications professionals and entertainment celebrities have helped in developing the lessons—and its fun and excitement. Produced by the Children’s Television Workshop, SESAME STREET is funded by grants from Carnegie Corporation, The Ford Foundation, The U.S. Office of Education and other Federal Agencies.

The Little Network That Might

Fox is still around after a year, stumbling but scrappy

Well, no one ever said starting a fourth network would be easy. The Fox Broadcasting Co., Rupert Murdoch’s ambitious effort to compete with abc, cbs and nbc, has weathered enough tin-pot tragedies in its brief life to fill a month on Another World. Joan Rivers’ much publicized attempt to challenge Johnny Carson with her own talk show ended in ignominious cancellation after seven months on the air. Her eventual replacement, The Wilton North Report, failed even more abruptly and abysmally. Fox executives once hoped to have three nights of prime-time programming on the air by now; only two are up and running, and just one is doing passably in the ratings. Fox’s losses thus far are close to $80 million, and the flow of red ink does not seem likely to be stanched anytime soon.

So much for the bad news. The good news for Fox is that, a year after the launch of its first prime-time shows, it is still around. Ratings for its Sunday-night schedule have risen in recent weeks, and the network is attracting a high proportion of young-adult viewers, those most desirable to advertisers. The future is still cloudy, but Fox executives are looking ahead with dogged, if chastened, determination. “We’ve had to learn the hard way and the expensive way,” says Programming Chief Garth Ancier. “But no one has ever got this far before.”

Fox has, moreover, got where it is with some distinction. Its scrappy, try-anything-and-see-what-works program philosophy has yielded no TV breakthroughs but a few notable experiments. Sunday night’s grab bag ranges from Werewolf, an oddly morose horror series, to The Tracey Ullman Show, a quirky half-hour of comedy sketches that qualifies as TV’s, most interesting near-miss. Fox has also scored a coup by acquiring It’s Garry Shandling’s Show, the shrewdly self-parodying cable sitcom, which is running on Fox after its initial airings on Showtime. The network’s highest-rated show, 21 Jump Street, happens to be its best. A well-crafted, surprisingly intelligent police drama about a band of youthful cops who work undercover in high schools, the series has come up with an appealing teen heartthrob in Johnny Depp and some strikingly adult episodes on such subjects as aids and the teaching of creationism.

Ratings for Fox’s Sunday shows have been averaging between 3% and 6% of the national audience, well below most network fare but still respectable. Fox’s two-hour block on Saturday night, however, has languished in the dismal 2% range. Three of the four current Saturday shows will be scrapped next month to make room for two newcomers: Family Double Dare, a nighttime version of the hit children’s game show, and The Dirty Dozen, a wartime series based on the movie. Also in the works is a new version of Charlie’s Angels, for which Producer Aaron Spelling has launched a nationwide talent hunt to select four jiggly new stars.

Fox’s biggest embarrassment has been its bumbling attempts to field a viable late-night talk show. After Rivers’ demise. the network resorted to a succession of guest hosts. One of them, Arsenio Hall, began to catch on in the ratings—but only after Fox had committed to The Wilton North Report, a new show produced by Barry Sand, formerly of Late Night with David Letterman. The show, a mystifying mix of interviews, tongue-in-cheek features and Letterman-like smugness, was a bust with critics and audiences. It was canceled after four weeks.

Fox has now revamped its Late Show with two new, rotating hosts: Comedians Jeff Joseph and John Mulrooney. The duo will split the weekly duties until one, presumably, emerges as a hit. So far, these hapless winners of the Anyone Can Host contest look painfully unsure of what they are supposed to be doing; the abrasive Mulrooney’s strategy is to assault guests and audience members as if they were hecklers at a midnight show at the Improv. The program’s sole advantage is a virtual absence of promotional fanfare. “It didn’t seem to make sense to herald it until we were sure we had something worth heralding,” says Ancier, who argues that the neophytes need time to get used to the format.

For all the programming missteps. Fox’s 123 affiliates appear reasonably content. Earlier this year three stations dropped the network’s low-rated Saturday-night schedule. But at least one, WOFL in Orlando, plans to come back on board when the lineup is revamped next month. Still, the affiliate roster remains Fox’s biggest handicap. Many Fox stations are weak uhf outlets that are at a severe disadvantage vis-a-vis their network rivals. “Like any distributor, we have to rely on our retailers,” says Fox | Broadcasting President Jamie 3 Kellner. “In many cases we’re I starting with the newest retailer 1 in town.”

i Most industry observers seem satisfied with Fox’s bumpy progress. “I think they’re just about where they and we expected them to be at this time,” says Jack Otter, a senior vice president of McCann-Erickson advertising. Admits Kellner: “When you’re going against companies that have the power of abc, cbs and NBC, you’re taking on a pretty heavy job. It’s like climbing Mount Everest.” The first small steps up have been encouraging enough for the viewer to hope that the ascent continues. —By Richard Zoglin

Wireless Cigarette Lighter
A NEW cigar lighter attached to the automobile dash board is pressed until a red glow appears and can then be removed.

“Hit-And-Run” Victim Devises Camera Trap For Motorists

AN AUTO-FLASH device designed to snap photos of autos that run past red lights, into safety zones, and past stop streets, has been invented by William Running, a Detroit, Mich., electrician. A personal experience as a “hit-and-run” victim caused him to design the device.

For safety zones, the machine consists of a lighted sign set in the pavement which depresses when an auto passes over it. This actuates a camera set up on the curb so that it snaps a photo of the rear license plates of the offending auto.

At intersections and stop streets, a special trip set in the pavement actuates a camera when the offending car passes a red light, or stop sign, without stopping. Camera also records the time of violation so that the photographic record can be used as evidence in court.

Choose your course with this computerized golf game

Aim, tee off—this system shows you the next lie By BILL HAWKINS

Ah, it’s a beautiful day for golf at Pebble Beach. The water’s sparkling, the sky’s blue, and the wind—oops, forgot to program in the wind. No problem, though: Just push the right buttons and a gentle, five-knot breeze blows in from the north.

No, you can’t feel it, nor can you run your fingers through the fairway water hazard before you—but you’d better take them into account before teeing up. You’ll need more than a stroke of luck to win in this new computer-controlled Par-T-Golf game.

You play a real round, but all within a 24-by-14-foot area. The scene you see is one of over 800 photos that can be projected onto the nylon screen. The one the computer selects, however, will depend on your game.

When you tee off, you aim, and actually hit the ball into the screen. As the ball moves, it passes beneath three infrared sensors mounted in the ceiling. The sensors measure the speed, angle off the tee, and azimuth as the ball nears the screen. Then, when the ball bounces off, the deflection angle is measured—the greater the angle, the more the spin on the ball, indicating the degree of hook or slice you had.

All this information—including wind direction and velocity—is used by a Texas Instruments microprocessor. It determines where your shot would have landed—within one foot-had you actually hit the ball at Pebble Beach, and selects the next photo of that spot for you to continue.

Roughs and greens are played on the turf-covered floor in front of the screen. And the system keeps track of up to four players. Eventually, it will be programmed for multiple courses with a variety of handicaps.

The Par-T-Golf is made by Optronics, Box 15697, 2125 S. 400 West, Salt Lake City, Utah 84115. Price: about $15,000.

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Tron: Computer Technology Goes Hollywood

by Jim Cavuoto

Imagine yourself in a world where software processes determine every aspect of your existence—what you think, where you go, whether you live or die. Imagine that each program in this computer world is the alter ego of some human programmer in another dimension. Imagine a world in which video games are live battles, where file manipulation is behavior control—where simulation is reality.

Some might argue that we are already approaching such a world. Computers are taking more and more functions away from human operators in the factory, in the marketplace and on the battlefield. It’s becoming hard to tell where human supervision ceases and where computer control begins. But there’s still room to fantasize about what really goes on inside the processor-minds of our computer colleagues. Can they outthink us? Do they ever wonder about us?

Walt Disney Productions, Burbank, CA, will give summer movie audiences the chance to ponder these questions when a futuristic adventure film, Tron, is released next month. Tron portrays computers in two domains: in a large communications company in the real world and in a micro-civilization existing within the electronic circuitry of a computer.

Even more significant than the subject matter is the computer technology used in producing the film. The animation and computer-generated scenery for the film are the most advanced ever used in a commercial motion picture. Live actors are merged with computer graphics in a technique being touted by Disney as a milestone in optical and light effects. The film has been in post-production special effects processing for over a year.

The company responsible for producing the majority of the computer animation is Information International Inc. (1.1.1.), Culver City, CA. I.I.I, has been involved with digital simulation for motion pictures for several years, having recorded major scenes in such feature films as Futureworld, and it has a $3 million facility devoted to scene simulation technology.

Richard Taylor, director of the company’s digital scene simulation division, oversees the design and programming of computer animation in Tron. “The film will make computer simulation a household word,” he says enthusiastically. “The animation is hypnotic. It has a perfectness that communicates subliminally to the audience.” Before joining this firm, Taylor was creative director for Robert Abel and Associates, where he won four Clio awards for excellence in television commercial production.

The film’s director is Steven Lisberger, who is making his debut as a live-action director. The idea for Tron came from his fascination with video games. The film stars Jeff Bridges, David Warner, Bruce Boxleitner and Cindy Morgan.

The story begins when a young computer expert and video arcade athlete decides to take on a large computer corporation he suspects of software piracy. A menacing control program gets in his way, however, and he finds himself in an electronic domain in which he must fight battles on a brutal video game grid.

It is in this surrealistic computer dimension that the digital scene simulation really shines. One third of the backgrounds are computer-generated, requiring that each artificial landscape be properly joined with the live-action frames. “The entire film uses backlighting, not reflected light,” explained Taylor. “As a result, each character is made out of pure light.” Multiple camera passes, anywhere from 12 to 20, are made to create a high-contrast image. Color gels are used in a process Taylor likens to “painting by number.” Between 5 million and 75 million calculations are required to create one frame of animation. It can take from 15 minutes to an hour to create a frame. Considering that 1,240 frames make up one minute of film, this gives some idea about the complexity of the task.

I.I.I, has developed a four-stage process for developing simulation scenes for films and television commercials. The first stage is design, which involves coming up with an idea and creating a story-board. The next phase is data entry, which can be done in one of three ways. The most prevalent is encoding by hand, whereby the designer generates two orthogonal views of a scene, then uses three cursors to encode points in three-dimensional space. A second method, used for well-behaved geometric shapes, is algorithmic, or mathematical description. The third technique is picture scanning, which is used to add texture to three-dimensional surfaces.

After all the data describing a scene has been entered into the computer, I.I.I, uses its proprietary Director’s Language to further specify the image. Size, color, orientation, lighting, reflections and textures can be easily manipulated with this interactive language. All the scene characteristics a studio production company would normally use on a set are accessible with Director’s Language. The fourth and final stage of the simulation process is filming, which uses a high-resolution electronic imaging camera in conjunction with a precision graphics recorder.

The main computer used is a Foonley F-1, which Taylor describes as a “souped-up” PDP-10. An auxiliary high-speed, 36-bit computer with 512 bytes of memory available gives the system its high performance. This computer is 10 times faster than the PDP-10. Other hardware making up the image processing system includes two programmable film readers, a 40-in. by 60-in. Taylos graphics tablet and various display monitors.

Magi, Inc., Elmsford, NY, which is assisting I.I.I, in the simulation for Tron, uses a Perkin Elmer 3240 computer with 2M bytes of memory and two 80M-byte disk drives. A Celco CFR 4000 computer generates Magi’s pictures on a monitor.

Concerning the future of computer animation in the film industry, Taylor predicts further improvement of the man/machine interface to enhance a director’s ability to control a scene. “Most simulation systems aren’t sufficiently user-oriented at this time,” he said. “There needs to be refinement of hands-on control of the computer.”

He also foresees the need for increased computational ability to get more realistic imagery and movement. One area that would benefit from greater processing speeds would be the simulation of the human form. At this point, stylized human beings can be created for medium or long shots, but a realistic close-up portrait of the human face—complete with hairs and pores—is beyond the power of computer simulation. Taylor feels it will be 10 years before this challenge is met.

Aside from the movie’s superb graphics and special effects, Tron is likely to attract throngs of first-time and repeat viewers because of its subject matter—video games. Video arcade games took in about $5 billion in revenue last year, and their popularity is still growing. Ironically, the most successful video game, Space Invaders, grosses $600 million each year, three times the income of the most successful movie in history, Star Wars. That fact is obviously not lost on Bally Manufacturing, the nation’s largest video arcade game maker, who have introduced a Tron video game and will be placing the game in theaters showing the movie.

Meanwhile, Disney accountants will undoubtedly be scrutinizing boxoffice returns, In the hope that computer technology will emerge as the next science fiction formula to challenge the astronomical Star Wars grosses. ?

Oven Toaster

Old-fashioned, oven-flavored, buttered toast for breakfast takes only two minutes with this new Munsey toaster that also bakes frozen waffles, warms coffee cake, toasts cheese sandwiches and browns rolls. Made of lightweight aluminum with electric coils as its heating element, the toaster comes with a pull-out tray on which you can toast four slices of bread at once. It’s fine for English muffins and chunky Italian bread and you have no problem putting in or taking out such items as you often do with pop-up toasters.

“SLINKY” SPRINGS to FAME

Given an initial shove, “Slinky” eerily and deliberately flip-flops end over end down a flight of steps. It is simply a spring, but it does stunts that made R. P. James, Philadelphia engineer, think of converting it into a toy.

The flat-coiled strip of Swedish blue steel assumes shapes in almost unending patterns. Mr. James got his toy idea when he saw the spring roll off a workbench and do funny antics on the floor.

Inert, “Slinky” (below) is a handful of spring before wriggling into its giddy gyrations for child or grownup.

“Slinky” goes places when, with a flick of the wrist, it leaps out into space like a striking serpent. Much of its action depends on the ingenuity of its handler.

Produced in one small plant in Philadelphia, 100,000 of the springs sold so rapidly that the promoter had to subcontract to other plants in a number of cities.

Here Come the Networkers

A new communications medium gives birth to its own stars ike Greenly had been trying for weeks to interview Ed Koch about New York City’s handling of the AIDS epidemic when he finally buttonholed the mayor on the steps of city hall. “There I was,” Greenly typed into his portable computer soon afterward, “cheek to jowl with His Honor.” Two hours later he had plugged his Tandy Model 100 into a telephone line and dispatched the first installment of his exclusive interview.

Greenly was not reporting for any newspaper or wire service. For the past two years the former vice president of Avon Products, who always dreamed of being a news correspondent, has been acting out his journalistic fantasies by covering events, writing stories and transmitting them by modem to the mainframe computer of the Source, an electronic information service. That enables any of the Source’s 60,000 subscribers to call up Greenly’s stories on the screens of their computers and, if they wish, to respond with comments of their own.

Greenly calls himself “planet earth’s first interactive electronic journalist,” and is probably the most widely read writer on the Source. But he is only one of the many unforgettable characters turning up on computer screens these days. Just as radio and television spawned new personalities and stars, the rapidly growing computer networks, from humble electronic bulletin boards to giant information supermarkets, are breeding their own celebrities.

On CompuServe, with 240,000 subscribers, nearly everybody knows Terry (“Cupcake”) Biener. She is the Valley Stream, N.Y., housewife who writes Cupcake’s Column, an electronic tattle sheet that reports on the real-life romances of couples who meet on the network. For example, two people whose “handles” on CompuServe were Angel and Malaprop were married last September in a California ceremony filled with “flowers, bal- loons and water pistols” At the Old Colorado City Electronic Cottage, a bulletin board in Colorado Springs, Colo., used by 8,500 buffs, Proprietor David Hughes does a sort of man-on-the-street reporting he calls “saloon journalism.” Operating out of a local bistro with a portable PC, he lobbies against the growing legislative threats to his “electronic freedom of speech,” urging others to join the fight.

In the San Francisco Bay area, the place to be is the Well, where Counterculture Editor Stewart Brand files wry comments on current affairs in the telegraphic style he perfected in the Whole Earth Catalogs. On the Electronic Information Exchange System (EIES) in Newark, Murray Turoff, co-author of the influential Network Nation, brainstorms with a highbrow group of 1,200 executives and writers that has included such luminaries as Author Alvin Toffler.

The influence of the networkers already extends to the outside world—as Diane Worthington, on-line manager of the popular PARTI section of the Source, can testify. When Worthington was charged with involvement in a San Francisco LSD operation, arrested and held without bail, her electronic admirers sprang to her defense. Planning their strategy in nationwide PARTI conferences, they sent telegrams to the judge, and are now raising money for Worthington’s legal defense. In Colorado Springs, David Hughes, alerting fellow networkers to a proposed zoning-code change that would have made it more difficult for them to work at home, stirred up so much opposition to the measure that it was modified to suit their needs by the city planning commission.

Celebrities of this new breed have one thing in common: they all write effectively. “Networking is catnip for people who communicate best by the written word,” says Art Kleiner, a Berkeley, Calif., writer who runs conferences on CompuServe and EIES. In the world of computer networks, he says, “Good writers have charisma, mediocre writers improve, pushy or insensitive writers get ignored.”

In sheer volume of words, Mike Greenly is far ahead of the pack. He started his career as a computer journalist by sending in breathless behind-the-scenes reports from major trade gatherings like Comdex and the Consumer Electronics Show. Spurred by instant feedback from other networkers, he broadened the scope of his reporting to cover the national political conventions last year and the presidential Inauguration last January, where he posed as a correspondent for a fictitious news service. In May he started a series of interviews with people touched by the AIDS panic, taking his readers into hospitals, bathhouses and bordellos.

Last week Greenly was reporting from Washington on the first meeting of the Electronic Networking Association, a trade group chartered last spring to “promote electronic networking in ways that enrich individuals, enhance organizations and build global communities.” Some of the 180 participants were employees of firms like Citibank and AT&T that have built networks for their own internal use. Many were products of the counterculture and Me generations who now seek fulfillment in networking. “The business is just rife with spiritual odd fellows,” says Stewart Brand. “They’ve found something that really does expand their consciousness.”

A case in point: Peter and Trudy Johnson-Lenz, two programmers from Lake Oswego, Ore., have created a slot on Turoff’s EIES network devoted to a meditation process they call attunement. When a caller types 4- ATTUNE and presses the RETURN key, a series of messages selected to calm the spirit and quiet the mind scroll up the screen. “Close your eyes, pause quietly for a few moments and be here now,” read the final instructions. “Press RETURN when you feel attuned.” —By Philip Elmer-DeWrtt Reported by Robert C. Wurmstedt/Denver

New Ingenuities

Pocket-Cleaning Device
• A MAN’S pockets are a catchall, particularly if he smokes a pipe. Since many pockets cannot be turned inside out, the dry cleaner has difficulty in freeing them from particles which might make a stain. Here is a brush and suction cleaner which gets into the seams.

All-Purpose Washstand
• OUT West, the combination fixture shown above has been invented. Its utility is apparent at a glance; you can wash as thoroughly as you desire. The cylindrical basin-drain is adjusted at any desired height, for a bath or a hurried refreshment.

Shimmying Packs Concrete
• AT the left, a new vibrator system for tamping concrete, to fill all the crevices, and insure the greatest cohesion in the finished mixture. It is operated from an air compressor; and hammers on its casing, sending a continued tremor through the whole mass. As shown, it not only takes the place of tamping from the top, but will work from underneath a heap of concrete, shaking it down into place.

Protecting Costly Displays
• TO show diamonds or even gold is a temptation to the smash-and-grab thief, who does not need even a kit of burglars’ tools. Electric alarms are fairly certain, but it may take some time to summon a watchman, while the thief is running. This apparatus at the right not only sounds the alarm but, the moment the criss-cross ray of light is broken, the relay drops the jewels and a strong steel curtain is slid over them, protecting them temporarily while the guards are coming.

Hurricane-Proof Shade
• A FLORIDA invention, combining safety with daily utility, is shown below.

Anti-Pirate Mystery Ships
• IN old days, a warship could not be told from a merchant ship at a distance, and many a pirate got “a bite” instead of a rich prey. In the Great War, the British had “Q” ships with concealed guns to turn the tables on submarines. Now the Chinese government has fitted up a steamer to trap pirates in coastal waters, if they try to make a haul of the seemingly helpless craft.

Scratching Post
• CATS must be manicured, but it is annoying to have them sharpen their claws on your trousers, or the wallpaper. Here is a present they will like, and keep them in good health.

Reading in Bath
• YOU can spend pleasant or profitable moments in a warm bath, relaxing and reading something light at your ease, with the invention, shown below, of a San Francisco woman.

This Novel Barber Chair Keeps Attention of Youngsters

CHILDREN who have an aversion to getting their hair cut, rapidly overcome it when they see the special chairs that have been installed in a barber shop in Bisbee, Arizona.

The chairs are turned easily and there are plenty of objects and levers to keep the child’s attention while the barber is clipping his hair.

Modeled after toy automobiles, ponies and boats, the children’s chairs not only attract juvenile attention and allow the barber to cut a youngster’s hair without his wanting to get out and roam all around the shop, but grown-up customers often get the urge to climb into one of the chairs for their trim.

Stereoscope Holds Seven Views Mounted on a Disk

Still making a bid for popularity, the old parlor stereoscope is now being offered in a compact, “streamline” form, showing pictures mounted in disks that contain seven colored stereographs each, instead of the traditional card that holds but one view, Tripping a lever at the top of the new stereoscope, which is made of durable plastic, brings the next picture into place, and this may be repeated until the seven have been seen. Originals for the views are made with a special miniature camera, using natural color film. Pictures are paired opposite each other on the disk, and when viewed through the apparatus they give a three-dimensional effect.

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CHRISTOPHER SHOLES’ TYPEWRITER

Nagged by associate James Densmore, Sholes made many models to improve his Type-Writer machine.

By Alfred Lief

IN 1863 a Wisconsin printer named Christopher Latham Sholes was appointed collector of the Port of Milwaukee by President Lincoln. It wasn’t a strenuous job and Sholes had plenty of time on his hands. He spent it in a machine shop on the north side of town where he and some friends tinkered with inventions.

One of his shop cronies was Samuel W. Soule, with whom he patented a device to number the pages of ledgers. Another was Carlos Glidden, whose enthusiasm was fired by published accounts of attempts to create a writing machine. The summer of 1867 Glidden showed Sholes a story about a “literary piano” which had been invented by an American in England. This was Sholes’ inspiration.

He worked on the idea in partnership with Soule and Glidden and came up with an instrument that printed the single letter W through carbon paper that was struck by a telegraph key. Happy over the result. Sholes tackled the whole alphabet. In a few months he had his first model.

Now came the job of getting backers and dividing the rights to the invention, but none of the three had money to finance the development of the crude model and an argument resulted that split the team. By 1872 only Sholes was left, nagged by James Densmore, another ex-printer, into making model after model to improve the thing they named the Type-Writer. Sholes always seemed to be satisfied with his last one but not Densmore.

Densmore, the spark plug, had acquired the largest financial share. He was the promoter, production man and salesman. He never let go, even when the frail, consumptive Sholes saw no future in the machine and disposed of most of his interest. Densmore helped him rearrange a four-row keyboard in just about the order that is standard today.

To move the carriage back into position, Sholes used a sewing machine treadle which released the power weight. It also turned the platen for the next line of type on a continuous roll of paper. He even attached a warning bell. Next, a spring motor replaced the weight. This was the first practical typewriter on the market.

All that were made were sold—to telegraph offices, court reporters and lawyers. The only trouble was that they cost more to produce than the price people were willing to pay.

Debts piled up and the promoting group made a deal in 1873 with E. Remington & Sons, makers of guns and sewing machines, to manufacture 1,000 typewriters which were to be sold by Densmore and his associates. Remington set apart a section of its large factory at Ilion, N. Y., and assigned expert mechanics to the task of remodeling the machine.

Densmore opened a store on Hanover Street, N. Y., and waited for the first deliveries. They came in July 1874—the Sholes & Glidden Type-Writer, advertised as affording a speed of 30 to 60 words a minute, saving time, paper and postage. The price was $125. As Sholes had a one-tenth interest in the royalty, he was entitled to $1.25 a machine.

Sales were slow. Remington revamped the machine and added a shift key for lower-case letters in 1878. Sholes didn’t like what had • been done to his brain-child. He fretted, concentrated on a portable model and gave up the last of his rights to Densmore in 1880. His patents were about to expire anyway. A tally of the sum Sholes received from Densmore through the years came to $25,000.

Not long after, the Remington Company was itself in need of funds and sold its typewriter business to another firm, which adopted the Remington name. The spade work had been done. The typewriter had won acceptance in the business world.

Visible typing was not developed until 1893, three years after Sholes’ death. Further improvements and the pressure of competition brought about today’s precision machines.

Christopher Latham Sholes, known as the father of the typewriter, might well be called the great-grandfather of the close to 1,000,000 machines that are now made each year. •