In the complex and competitive electronics business, the race is to the swift —not necessarily the mighty. Two little-known companies reported that they have beaten out the world’s corporate goliaths with important innovations in their fields.
> The world’s first portable, transistorized color TV set that is ready for production was introduced by Japan’s Yao Electric Co., whose founder, Keijiro Yao, 61, built a wartime radio manufacturing business into a diversified maker of appliances with sales last year of $67.5 million. His compact color TV has an 8-in.-by-6-in. screen, weighs only 19 lbs., and uses a single electron gun in its color tube (bigger U.S. color sets use three electron guns—one each for red, blue and green). Yao will put the set on the market this fall. Plans are to sell it at first for about $360, then bring the price down to $280 as production steps up, and to start exporting next spring to the U.S., where it will sell for about the same price.
> A briefcase-size electronic “computer” was brought out by Italy’s one-year-old Industria Macchine Elettrotec-niche, a subsidiary of the country’s big Edison Group, which has been investing in other interests since its electric-power plants were nationalized in 1962. The all-transistor computer weighs 30 lbs., requires no more current than a 40-watt bulb and operates up to 50 times as fast as mechanical desk calculators.
It silently adds, subtracts, divides and multiplies as many as eight digits in one-fifth second, can carry out several jobs at once as different operators feed it problems from separate keyboards. Developed by 35-year-old Engineer Massimo Rinaldi and dubbed the IME84, it also has a “memory” system to help solve more complex problems, and is capable of handling payrolls and invoices for medium-sized firms. Its producer already has 10,000 orders from dealers in eleven countries, including the U.S. Price: about $1,700.
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