CED Digest Vol. 6 No. 40

CED Digest Vol. 6 No. 40 • 10/6/2001
20 Years Ago In CED History:

October 7, 1981:
* The eight-day Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, in which 44
sovereign states took part, concludes in Melbourne, Australia with a
communique calling for "global negotiations" on economic development.

October 8, 1981:
* A Canadian parliamentary subcommittee, after a one-year study, urges
government action to curb acid rain.

October 9, 1981:
* The Egyptian Ministry of Defense identifies the leader of the
assassination plot against President Sadat as the brother of a man who
had been arrested during the September crackdown on dissident elements;
the other attacking commandos were said to be Muslim fundamentalists.
* Future CED titles in widespread theatrical release: Rich and Famous,
Paternity.

October 10, 1981:
* An estimated 250,000 people march in Bonn, the capital of West
Germany, to protest NATO's announced plans to deploy nuclear weapons in
Western Europe.

October 11, 1981:
* An unknown rock performer named Prince opens for the Rolling Stones at
the Los Angeles Coliseum.

October 12, 1981:
* Amnesty International, a human rights organization based in London,
announces that the 1,800 executions carried out in Iran during the
previous four months exceeded the total number of executions by all the
governments of the world in 1980.

* RCA PRESS RELEASE:
RCA Demonstrates Advanced VideoDisc Player at Vidcom

CANNES, France -- RCA demonstrated today the advanced capabilities of
its "CED" VideoDisc system with such features as programmable random
access, high-speed visual search, repeat picture and the ability to
automatically repeat program segments on the disc.

Roy H. Pollack, RCA Executive Vice President, said the expanded
capabilities of the "CED" system were demonstrated at this time to
provide the worldwide electronics industry with a progress report of
RCA's capacitance electronic disc system. "RCA has established the 'CED'
system in the United States, and we are now actively encouraging its
adoption by other international consumer electronic firms, particularly
in Europe," he said.

The prototype model demonstrated here at a Vidcom '81 press conference
was developed at the company's David Sarnoff Research Center in
Princeton, N.J. Mr. Pollack said no timetable has been established for
the introduction of these advanced VideoDisc player features.

"We continue to believe that our introductory products, particularly
with the addition of stereo sound next year, do in fact incorporate the
product features necessary to build a mass market. At the same time we
recognize that some consumers will express an interest in a deluxe
player that offers more features and advanced technical capabilities,"
Mr. Pollack said.

Dr. Jon K. Clemens, Director of VideoDisc Systems at RCA's Research
Laboratories, demonstrated the special features of the advanced RCA
Videodisc player including the programmable random access capability.
Using a remote control unit, he selected program material by either
time, band or field, "thus clearly showing the potential of the 'CED'
system for educational and industrial applications," he noted.

In his demonstration of the visual search feature with on-screen
picture, Dr. Clemens used the prototype system's two search speeds, 16x
and 120x. Dr. Clemens also programmed the player to repeat segments of
the disc, and demonstrated the repeat picture capability of the player.

He said that in the short term specially prepared discs can be used to
provide the repeat picture feature. "In the long term, a low-cost solid
state memory device could be developed to provide repeat picture
capability for all standard 'CED' video discs," Dr. Clemens indicated.

Dr. Clemens told the press audience that for some 20 minutes they had
been watching a still video disc picture from a single groove that had
been played 9,000 during that period "with no visible degradation. In
fact, plays of over 1,000,000 times have been demonstrated with no
noticeable degradation to the picture."

The RCA scientist, who is a co-recipient of the International Rhein
Prize 1979 for his contributions to the RCA VideoDisc system, said every
"CED" video disc contains a code that includes a field number and band
identification. In the demonstration, the field number was converted
into a time which was displayed on the TV screen. The code was also used
in conjunction with a microprocessor to randomly access any segment of
the disc.

Dr. Clemens stressed that the prototype player clearly demonstrated the
ability of a "CED" stylus system to randomly access a specific field on
the disc as well as to play a single groove repeatedly without damage to
the disc.

"Having incorporated these capabilities into the basic 'CED' system it
is obvious that there are many new features possible, and today we have
demonstrated only a few of them," Dr. Clemens said.

A picture of the prototype "SGT400" player in operation can be viewed at
this url:



http://www.cedmagic.com/history/sgt400.html

October 13, 1981:
* Hosni Mubarak is overwhelmingly confirmed as president of Egypt in a
national referendum.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "popper" <popper>
To: <digest@cedmagic.com>
Subject: USA stylus
Date: Tue, 2 Oct 2001 23:10:48 +0100

hi i have the opertunity to buy a stylus for my gec uk Pal machine, will
this work ok
 
cheers
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