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STAR*TECH JOURNAL/JANUARY 1984
-STAR..i.
IECH"1(
JOU
The Technical Monthly
for the Amusements Industry
P.O. Box 1 065
Merchantville, NJ 081 09
609/662-3432
JANUARY 1984
VOLUME 5, NO. 11
Publisher/Editor
James Galore
Administrative Assistant
L.T. DiRenzo
Art/ Advertising Coordinator
Paul Ehlinger
Circulation Promotion
Linda Geseking
Layout
Dale Meloni Graphics
Contributing
Technical Writers
Todd Erickson
Don Becker
Mark "Bear'' Attebery
Duane Erby
STARHECH JOURNAL, January
1984, Vol. 5, No. 11. Copyright
1984 by StarHech Journal, Inc. All
rights reserved. Address inquiries
to: P.O. Box 1065, Merchantville,
NJ 08109. Phone: 609/662-3432.
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TECH JOURNAL (ISSN 0739·1048)
is published monthly by Star•Tech
Journal, Inc., 18 North Centre St.,
P.O. Box 1065, Merchantville, NJ
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*
NEWS BITS
* SUPERMICRO
BREAKS THE 1-MIPS BARRIER
*
5-INCH PROJECTION TV
* "AMORPHOUS
FOR FUTURE TRANSFORMERS?
* RESEARCH * METAL"
COOPERATIVE BEGINS PROJECT
NEW TUBE FAMILY
SUPERMICRO BREAKS THE 1-MIPS BARRIER
A supermicroprocessor introduced in October by National Semiconductor Corp. executes one
Million instructions per second (MIPS). That makes it the fastest micro on the market, according
to company officials. The new NS32032 chip, which processes data in 32-bit chunks, operates at
speeds comparable to superminicomputers costing $250,000. Complete systems based on the
NS32032 are expected to sell for less than $100,000. The chip alone will cost about$60 in large
quantities by 1985, when it will be produced in volume. By then the new chip will have plenty of
competition. Several computer makers (Hewlett-Packard, Digital Equipment Corp., Western
Electric, and NCR) are already producing 32-bit microprocessors for internal consumption. The
other leading independent micro makers (Intel, Motorola, and Zilog) are expected to begin
production of their supermicro designs in 1984. National hopes that early availability of its chip,
now being delivered in sample quantities, will give it a leg up on the competition. Meanwhile,
National is already designing a successor to the NS32032 that will incorporate memory
management, floating point instructions, and other functions now available only as separate chips.
This highly integrated chip, designated NS32Cl32, is slated for introduction in 1987. It will
contain 500,000 transistors - a considerable leap in complexity over the 70,000-transistor
NS32032.
5-INCH PROJECTION TV
"Giant screen" and "projection TV" are no longer synonymous - not since Panasonic displayed
a prototype five-inch projection set The little set is designed for use as a desktop monitor and folds
into a compact size not more than three inches high. When opened, a translucent screen pops up
and three tiny projection tubes two inches in diameter ( one for each color) throw a well-defined
color picture on the screen, over five foot-lamberts bright. The whole thing weighs less than seven
pounds and operates from AC or battery. Panasonic declined to give out price or availability date.
"AMORPHOUS METAL" FOR FUTURE TRAN FORMERS?
A new kind of core material," amorphous metal," has the potential of eliminating more than a half-
billion dollars a year energy waste in power transformers, say General Electric scientists. G .E. is
now engaged - with the support of electric power organizations - in a $6.6 million program
designed to make that core material commercially practical.
Amorphous metal is a fundamentally new kind of material, in which the orderly, crystalline
atomic structure of metals and alloys is totally absent. The material's atoms and molecules are
arranged randomly - much as they are in glass. (The material is also known as" glassy metal" or
"metallic glass.")
The amorphous composition is much easier to magnetize than materials now used for
transformer cores; thus core losses are reduced (by about 70 percent) resulting in great savings.
Amorphous metal is made by ultra-fast cooling. The molten iron-based alloy (at about
2,300°F) is squirted onto a cool (60°F) rapidly spinning wheel, where it hardens in about a
thousandth of a second into a thin ( .00 I-inch) ribbon. The ultra-fast action freezes the material
before it has time to assume the ordered structure of metals.
The present program is aimed at accelerating the commercialization of transformers with those
cores. Some major manufacturing challenges will have to be met before they can be mass-
produced at low cost.
Meanwhile G.E. has produced 25 "pre-prototype" transformers, which are being installed in
key utility systems as part of a long-time evaluation program. Within the next 39 months 1,000 25
KV A transformers will be delivered for field testing by sponsoring utilities.
RESEARCH COOPERATIVE BEGINS PROJECT
The Semiconductor Research Cooperative, a subsidiary of the Semiconductor Industry Associa-
tion, disclosed that it is initiating development of a pilot program to demonstrate the manufactur-
ability and reliability of a 4-megabit memory device. SRC, formed two years ago, is an alliance of
18 companies, among them IBM, G.E., Motorola, CDC, DEC, Intel, AMD, HP, Silicon
Systems, and Monolithic Memories. Intel is promising that it will start production of a new !-
megabit bubble memory device late this year that they expect to sell for $99 in quantity.
NEWTUBE FAMILY
The most dramatic trend for 1984 is the new series ofFS (for Flat Square) picture tubes that is
appearing in color sets for the first time. Pioneered by Toshiba, and destined eventually to spread
to all other manufacturers, the new tubes have extremely rectangular comers and a virtually flat
faceplate contour. They are specifically designed for better presentation of computer graphics, as
well as more aesthetic set design and wider viewing angle. Because of the squarer comers,
diagonal measurement is increased - the 20-inch FST replacing the existing 19-inch, 14-inch
replacing 13-inch and eventually (probably this year) a 26-inch FST for applications that
currently use 25-inch. The first sets using the new tub configuration are several 14- and 20-inch
models from Toshiba and a 20-inch from Hitachi, with other brands to be phased in later in the
year.