The everything set It’s a carry-along entertainment and information center—AM, FM, CB, public service, aircraft, and weather bands, three-inch TV, cassette tape—along with a built-in mike and sleep switch. Six D cells power it. It’s $249.95, from Sampo, 1050 Arthur Ave., Elk Grove Village, III. 60007.
“Unconventional” recording formats make recovering data from old disks a bit tricky. A problem the Archive Team has been dealing with as they endeavor to preserve roughly everything that has ever been stored. Ever. Dense disc The MD-4 computer mini-disc unit from IMSAI (14860 Wicks Blvd., San Leandro, Calif. 94577) uses conventional Micropolis drives, but […]
Desk-top terminal This 12x9x2-1/2-inch display takes the place of a full-size computer CRT terminal. It displays 12 lines of 40 characters and is touch sensitive—you give commands by just touching spots on the screen. Price: $3500. General Digital, 700 Burnside Ave., E. Hartford, Conn. 06108.
Game/teacher Hook Intellivision to your color TV and its preprogrammed software lets you do everything from play games to learn a language. It has 60-by-92-line graphics in 16 colors. With keyboard, it’s $499. Maker: Mattel Electronics, 5150 Rosecrans Ave., Hawthorne, Calif. 90250.
Get instant mpg, time of arrival, miles to go, and more—at the push of a button
By BILL HAWKINS
You've been on the road for hours. The clock says you're running late, the gas gauge says you're running low. And there's a desolate stretch of highway ahead between you and your destination. Should you take the extra time to look for a gas station or do you continue, hoping the lonely roadway is shorter than your fuel supply?
I would buy almost anything if it was called the Concord Delirium I. World’s thinnest watch A quartz analog watch barely as thick as a nickel has been introduced by Ebauches SA of Switzerland and ETA, its subsidiary. The solid-gold watch, only 1.98 mm thick (0.52 mm thinner than its nearest rival, says the maker), […]
What’s New IN ELECTRONICS BY WILLIAM J. HAWKINS Game/teacher Hook Intellivision to your color TV and its preprogrammed software lets you do everything from play games to learn a language. It has 60-by-92-line graphics in 16 colors. With keyboard, it’s $499. Maker: Mattel Electronics, 5150 Rosecrans Ave., Hawthorne, Calif. 90250. The everything set It’s a […]
Incredible Cray-1 cruises at 80 million operations a second
It's 10 times faster than the biggest IBM, with six times more memory
By JIM SCHEFTER
"Step into the computer," said my guide.
I did, and felt the chilling sensation of moving into the megabit maw of a machine so advanced in electronic intellect that it can only talk to other machines.
"Jack's Welding? My loudspeakers are low. Fill 'em up with helium, please."
Strange phone call? It'll be routine for affluent audiophiles using a new speaker system, the Hill Type 1. Type 1 cabinets contain a helium bottle good for about 300 hours of playing time. Minute amounts of helium bleed into a glowing plasma, or highly ionized gas—heart of the speaker from Plasmatronics Inc. (2460 Alamo, S.E., Albuquerque, N.M. 87106).
Microcircuits like the V6-inch-square chip enlarged above now carry 10 times as many circuits as ordinary silicon devices. International Business Machines Corp. researchers also put more zip in their experimental chip: It's four times faster but draws one-tenth the power of previous field-effect transistor (FET) circuits.