REWIRE YOURSELF

FUTURE FUN/ FUNNY FUTURES

REWIRE YOURSELF

Richard Robinson

Now that the zombies of the stratosphere have landed and are walking the streets disguised as Sony Walkman addicts, what's next becomes a question to which I can only give reactionary answers. And having recently been informed by the Consumer Electronics Group of the Electronic Industries Association as to what is next, I shudder to think about it, let alone report it.

The Japanese have not yet hypnotized all of America, after all; not everyone is walking down the street with headphones clamped on their ears, but they are a patient race and probably expect us to get completely wired up in a couple of years as opposed to instantly. And they do realize the emotional problems involved. Actually, it is just one problem: the problem. When the zombies are home they are plugged into their TV sets, feeding on the noisy visual disinformation, but when the zombies go out all they have is their Walkman sound. Of course it is better than nothing, but it is still a let-down. The Sony Walkman is only sound, no picture. Yes, it is the problem.

There have been stabs at solving the problem. Sinclair, Panasonic, and others have introduced little TV sets. Very little, battery operated, extremely portable. But, frankly, not little enough. And, more recently many manufacturers have added TV screens to their portable AM/FM cassette machines. But again, for most segments of the population, not portable enough. After all, it, wasn't until the Walkman and its competitors came along with those lightweight headphones that street sound finally came into its own.

So now the answer has been found. The latest Consumer Electronics News announces that Toshiba has a new kind of TV set in the works. Called a 'Super-mini' TV, it measures 6.8 inches long by 3.2 inches wide by 0.7 inches thick, It is, if fact, palm size. Weighing only ten and one half ounces, Toshiba's new TVs are termed experimental, although just how experimental they are is open to question since the company has announced three versions, one with just TV, one with TV and clock, and the third with TV and radio.

What makes these TVs absolutely different from any TVs that came before them is that the picture tube has been replaced with a liquid crystal display. The same kind of display that is used on most pocket calculators and digital watches to give number read-outs. Where the traditional cathode-ray tube in the traditional TV set is fragile, bulky, and requires-large amounts of high voltage to operate, the liquid crystal TV picture surface is extraordinarily compact, compact enough to be less than an inch deep.

When one stops to consider these TV sets, they are, actually, the same palm size as a pocket calculator. In fact, they are pocket calculators with a slightly larger display area'that show TV instead of adding or multiplying. As yet, Toshiba has only come up with these units in black and white picture versions, but frankly, I doubt if the absence of color matters.

So Toshiba has come up with a solution to the problem. A TV set we can strap to our hands, connect to out lightweight headphones and Still have one hand free. Now we will, of course, need this free hand to hold out in front of us so we can feel where we're going. Don't smile, right now the Walkman zombies can't hear where they're going, so making the step to not looking either won't cost them much thought. Not that they won't be annoyed if you bump into them.

I could spend the rest of this column making the point that Toshiba don't have to go to all this trouble to invent a new kind of TV display. After all, they could just have come up with a palm sized rotating disc with a hypnotic spiral on it. But they've done the expected, and the results, as I mentioned earlier, will be enough to make those of us who are still a bit independent shudder. Perhaps they'll eventually divide the streets so one side of the street will have a sidewalk for those with Walkmen and Toshiba TVs, and the other sidewalks will be for those of us who are still alive.