SIAR.If
JECH
JOU
The Technical Monthly
for the Amusements Industry
P.O. Box 1065
Merchantville, NJ 08109
609/662-3432
MAY 1984
VOLUME 6, NO. 3
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
Mark "Bear" Attebery
Joel S. Colegrove
"Video Jim" Ennis
* *
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NEWS BITS
"NEW LOOK'' FOR TV
HIBH-POWER SWITCH
SEMICONDUCTOR AND GAS LASERS
ATARI & ACTIVISION TO BROADCAST
SOFTWARE
RCA CORP. PHASES OUT VIDEODISC PLAYER
"NEW LOOK" FDR TV
R
ecently RCA revealed a two-step plan
to change the appearance of the tele-
vision set in the United States. Though the
Japanese were first to announce the FST
(Flatter Squarer Tube), a tube with a flatter
faceplate and squared-off corners. RCA has
outlined the American approach to the new
look - and it will make the transition in two
steps. The first step will be squaring off the
corners without flattening the faceplates, with
newversionsofthe25-, 19-and 13-inchtubes
in completely rectangular shapes- measured
diagonally as 26, 20 and 14 inches. These FS
(for Full Square) tubes will be followed by two
new tubes to be called SP (Square Planar).
The SP tubes are computer-designed and
have a surface that appears flat, but actually
is in the shape of a plateau when viewed in
profile. RCA will make SP tubes available in
27· and 20-inch sizes.
The FS tubes, whose faceplates have the
same curvature as today's tubes, will start
appearing in TV sets this summer. RCA thinks
that the introduction of the new tube sizes
means the end of the line for the 25-inch tube
in 1986 or 1987, while the 19-inch will last a
little longer because it will fill a need in the
more price-competitive smaller-screen area.
HIBH POWER SWITCH
A
STAR•TECH JOURNAL, May 1984,
Vol. 6, No. 3. Copyright 1984 by
Star•Tech Journal, Inc. All rights
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Journal. No part of this Journal may
be reproduced without permission.
tiny chip that fits on a finger tip is a
new semiconductor switch claimed
to have the highest power-handling ability
ever attained in a device of its kind Developed
by researchers at General Electric's Research
and Development Center, it is a new member
of GE's insulated-gate-transistor (IGl) family.
It can handle more than 12,000 watts of
power at switching rates of one million times a
second. The switch is less than¼ inch square
but holds 16,000 interconnected cells.
The inventor of the IGT, Dr. 8. Jayant
Baliga, predicts that this second-generation
switch will generate major cost savings when
used in controls for energy-saving adjustable-
speed motors and other electrical products.
SEMICONDUCTOR AND
BAB LASERS
-wi-,,e
emergence of practical, inexpen-
~ive semiconductor diode lasers has
been one of the most important recent
developments in laser technology. Older gas
lasers won't go the way of the vacuum tube
immediately, but semiconductor diode lasers
offer big advantages for many applications.
1
A semiconductor diode laser is a close
relative of the light-emitting diode (LED). As in
an LED, passage of a current through a pn
semiconductor junction generates light in a
diode laser. However, in diode lasers, the light
is tightly confined to the active layer, higher
currents are used, and the ends of the semi-
conductor crystal are cut so they reflect some
light back into the diode. The result is laser
emission- more intense, more coherent and
somewhat more tightly focused than LED
output.
Diode lasers offer the usual advantages of
semiconductor technology: they're compact,
durable, and require lower power and lower
voltage than gas-filled laser tubes. Laser
system designers also like the fact that their
output beam intensity can be modulated
simply by changing the drive current. Gas
lasers, on the other hand, require bulky and
expensive external modulators.
Early diode lasers suffered a fatal flaw -
they self-destructed in a matter of minutes if
operated continuously at room temperature.
Developers licked that problem by turning to
sophisticated internal structures that reduce
device-destroying waste heat. That effort,
which took many years and millions of dollars,
was aimed mainly at building light sources for
fiber-optic communications. Once these im-
proved semiconductor lasers came on the
market, engineers working on other types of
systems began to realize their potential.
The marriage of laser and photocopier
technology will soon offer new printing pos-
sibilities to users of personal computers.
Laser printers can meet or beat the speed of
dot-matrix printers, while producing output
comparable in quality to that of much slower
letter-quality printers. What's more, laser
printers can product graphics such as line
drawings and charts.
Laser printers are not the only computer-
related success story for diode lasers. Video-
disc players now being designed will
incorporate the solid state laser diode in
place of a helium neon gas tube. Semicon-
ductor lasers read and write data on special
light-sensitive disks in new types of data-
storage systems just coming on the market.
Although most of these data storage systems
cram a billion bytes of data onto a phonograph-
record size disk for large computer applications,
work is also under way on a smaller version
that would store 100 to 360 megabytes on a
4¾" (12 cm) disk for desktop computers.
Meanwhile, semiconductor lasers are being
produced by the hundreds of thousands to
play back ultra-pure sound in new digital
audio disk players. The players are selling in
the $400 to $600 range, but the lasers them-
selves are said to cost as little as $1 O each.