YOUR GUIDE TO CURRENT & FUTURE HOME ELECTRONICS 

Consider the numerous appliances you and your family have mastered during the past 50 years. Remember almost no household appliances existed 50 years ago. Some appliances have been around less than a decade. Before delving into what you have to train for next, let's look at the latest in home electronics.

Almost everyone has a videocassette recorder. But most people have never learned to program them to record the desired shows but the new units make it much easier and it can be done "on screen". The very latest models also incorporate a "translator". They record shows simulcast in two languages. By pressing an extra button you hear one language, then another or, if you both simultaneously. This is how the Japanese are now learning English.

TV are everywhere today but large screens are coming on strong. They will soon be a "must", to fit into your new home entertainment, information and educational centre. A large number of channels is not that far away. This year saw the introduction of Mattel's "Power Glove". Modified, this computer terminal will allow viewers via computers -- to handle shopping, banking, stock market manipulations and, selecting a sad, happy or boring endings for favorite soap operas.

To be current with the new global picture better build into your budget a good shortwave radio. They are no longer the crackly, static radios of the past. Today you punch in the digital frequency and get instant Cairo. The price range is around $200. If you always wondered what those Morse Code signals were saying, now's the time to buy. Morse-a-Word receivers will pick up the signal, translate it into English and flash it along a reader board for you to see. Software programs that do the same thing are available that work with home computers.

For your musical system, a stereo enhancer, equilizer, or real time spectrum analyzer ($100 each) will give you more of those flashing lights and enhanced sound. Both phones, standard or cordless can be hooked up to your stereo system so you can really hear from your friends.

If you haven't yet purchased a compact disc (CD) player go for the latest. The CD-ROM (Compact Disc-Read Only Memory), not only plays great digital sound but can deliver, for example, all the famous art works from the Louvre in Paris, the complete works of NASA, the fifteen billion year history of the world or 20 volumes of the Grolier Encyclopedia -- all on one side of the common 4.5-inch CD. A library on a disc. The new way to go. Prices are dropping fast. About $1,000 if you look around. What does the future hold? Later this year expect "Micro-TV" for the home computer. The ability to "frame-grab" a single picture from TV, freeze it and include in a computer print-out. If your electronic mail is discussing the Berlin Wall, include a picture of it in that letter to mother. You don't have to be everywhere anymore just to take a picture.

Later on: Full-time video on the computer screen as compression transmission allows real time video to be transmitted over present household copper phone cable. It will carry crunched information that expands once it hits a computer. Satellite dishes using the new frequencies are now broadcasting in Japan. They carry the new High Definition TV (HDTV) with 1125 lines of resolution. Crystal clear pictures. Your present home TV shows 525 lines (when it's new and you're living next door to the transmitter). Present dish size about that of a fibreglass cafeteria serving tray. Other frequencies now in the test stage will deliver a dish the size of a Thanksgiving dinner plate. Later still, the size of a saucer.

Much later with holographic projectors, similar to the big-screen projectors, TV stars will come right out of the screen. Larger than life. To match the new prices. Bigger than most of us can afford, at least for the first few years. Plan on watching it occasionally at the local pub.

Computers and regular TV are merging paths. The computer may win out because of greater versability. Never mind which wins the race in the dramatic changes that are going to be here in the future it is going to make whatever you have now look like the original Philco radio. All this is before everything switches to photons, carried by light not by electricity.

The future is capital intensive. Start saving now.

* * *

< previous | chapter index | next >
back to Main Chapter Listing
back to Home Page