Word: fours
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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There are varying word lists-some repetitions, some new words-at each of four levels of difficulty. In addition, the machine plays word games, and can put messages into code. (It also spells any word aloud, when the proper buttons are pushed, and children discover quickly that when improper buttons are pushed, bad words are spelled. The shock value is considerable when the pleasant mechanical voice pronounces "Eff, You, See ...") Speak & Spell, which sells for $64.95, was dreamed up by a Texas Instruments products engineer named Paul Breedlove, who had worked in voice synthesis and thought that the concept might...
...quite endearing, as war machines go. Milton Bradley's big computer action toy chirps merrily as it sets out on its rounds, plays a little tune when it is finished, and then yips five times like an anxious puppy when it is left turned on and unattended. Twenty-four glorious buttons on its carapace accomplish the programming. An eight-year-old achieves something impressive when he plans a complicated route under the dining room table to attack the cat and then translates his intentions into an orderly series of commands for the versatile machine...
...lighted readouts to create melodrama. The best example now in production is a brilliant quarter-arcade game called Space Invaders. It is a reaction-time contest: shoot down the massed, marching aliens shown on the big TV screen before they shoot you. The refinements are satanic. The player has four blockhouses behind which to hide his man, but as the blockhouses catch fire under attack, they crumble. As the sound effects become more ominous, the aliens begin to shoot faster and more accurately. Blast them all -whew!-and another phalanx appears, nearer and more menacing. The action is jitteringly fast...
...variously advise couples concerned about harming the baby to abstain totally during pregnancy, to do whatever they want in any month, or to forgo orgasm in later months because it causes uterine contractions and might induce premature labor. Most often, they recommend avoiding intercourse during the last four to six weeks of pregnancy. Now comes a report that is bound to disturb expecting couples-perhaps unnecessarily...
...principle, affirmative action has four apparently solid votes on the court, at least if Bakke and Weber are a guide: Justices Brennan, Marshall, White and Blackmun. The decisive fifth vote might depend on the particular facts of this case. Constitutional Scholar Laurence Tribe thinks this vote could be attracted by the fact that the set-aside is "more of a carrot than a stick" to help minorities...