Word: videodiscs
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...applications of the laser-type videodisc are limited only by the imagination, and applications even more innovative than the one in Knoxville have been developed. Examples...
Clustered inside the wedge-shaped steel-and-glass pavilion are 42 TV screens connected to 42 Sony videodisc machines, which are hooked up to 23 Apple II computers. Nine video stations on the ground floor explain the meaning of 480 energy-related terms. Don't know what a Pelton wheel is? Press the word on the screen, and presto!, a swirling water turbine appears. A different set of screens shows a colorful cutaway drawing of a house. Wondering how to make your home energy-efficient? Just touch the attic, for example, and watch a demonstration of how to insulate...
...system, says its unflappable designer, Tom Nicholson of the New York City exhibition firm of Ramirez and Woods, "personalizes" information. Determined to avoid an intimidating computer keyboard, he employed a "user-friendly," touch-sensitive screen. Pressure on the screen tells the computer to retrieve the information stored on the videodisc corresponding to the word or symbol touched. Although the computer makes the system truly responsive, what makes its applications so exciting is the versatility of the videodisc. And you thought the disc was the Edsel of video technology...
Alas, the poor videodisc, so misunderstood, so maligned. Most people think it a single-purpose instrument, a movie machine. The misconception was fostered by the much ballyhooed introduction in 1981 of RCA's Selecta Vision, 15 years and $200 million in the making. Not a truly innovative technology, Selecta Vision is essentially a phonograph that uses a mechanical stylus to play prerecorded movies. Its costly debut obscured the second type of videodisc: the infinitely more versatile laser-vision disc, designed for the videodisc player introduced by Magnavox in 1978. Manufactured by Pioneer, Sony and the 3M Co., the laser...
...side are stored 54,000 images, any one of which can be called up instantly on command. The stylus and laser systems are incompatible, which leads to a great deal of consumer confusion. Moreover, unlike the video cassette recorder, the systems cannot record from television. Currently there are three videodisc machines on the market using laser vision and ten using a stylus. Despite exaggerated reports of the disc's demise, both the stylus and laser players are selling better than color televison did when it first appeared 18 years...