Oisplags news

Thatcher backs MMI

The UK Government has backed the recommendation of the Alvey Committee to put money into British electronics industry to avoid being left behind in the race to 'fifth generation' computing. Four areas are singled out for priority, one of which is the manmachine interface. Nonetheless, the response of Patrick Jenkin, Secretary of State for Industry, fails some way short of Alvey's suggestion. The government will supply 200 million of the 250 million recommended. Industry will put up a further 150 million over the next five years. Jenkin remains convinced that 'the programme will ensure for British industry secure access to the new technology and to the products and processes on which our future prosperity depends'. Already many man-machine interaction groups are springing up around the country to take advantage of the windfall. Whether the right research emphasis is provided remains to be seen.

Bleeper says it in digits

A ten-digit liquid crystal display on a pager from British Telecom can be used to identify the caller by giving a phone number or to convey a message. The last two messages are stored in its memory and can be displayed at the touch of a button. Like a tone pager, the new version gives a distinctive bleep to alert users. It also has a lamp which flashes to enable users to keep in touch even when the bleep is muted to avoid disturbing others. Display Page, as the system is called, makes it practical for customers to advertise their paging numbers so that anyone may call them. With Telecom's existing tone page service each pager number is usually known only to a few people. When paged, the user has to respond by calling a prearranged number to find out who has been trying to make contact. But with Display Page, anyone can make a call. The message can be any combination of figures from 0 to 9. It may be a telephone number or a pre-

arranged code. The letter U can also be included, to indicate urgency for example. Bracket and dash symbols are also possible. British Telecom expects that the display capability will eventually be extended to include all the lettersof the alphabet as well as numbers.

British Telecom, 2-12 Gresham

Street, London EC2V 7AG, UK.

S c a n d i n a v i a gets Prestel
Marketing for British Telecom!s Prestel videotex system in Scandinavia is to be handled by Swedish company Viewdata AB. Viewdata A B will provide a sales and support facility to market Prestel's 200 000 pages of computer-held information in Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland. The company will also help Scandinavian companies which wi~h to publish information on Prestel. Prestel Headquarters, Telephone

House, Temple Avenue, London EC4Y OHL, UK.

Graphics, intelligent VDUs

A control terminal for computer generated colour diagrams, bar charts and graphs for use in command and control applications has been announced by Ferranti. It provides a high quality display suited to long periods of viewing, says the company. The local intelligence reduces the load on the host computer, and the high level programmer interface reduces programming time for complex operator interfaces. The display uses either a touchsensitive keyboard (pictured) which can be matched to the application or a standard qwerty keyboard, with the function keys user definable. The 355 m m display unit can be tilted or provide comfortable viewing angles. 64 combinations of foreground and background colour are offered.

Colour graphics terminal with touch input

Ferranti has also released a low cost, high performance alternative to the DEC VT100 terminal. It has been designed to comply with recent intelligent VDU standards. The large screen area, clear characters and tilt/ swivel display unit, coupled with the separately positioned, light touch

24 lines for text and two for status and host messages on Ferranti's low cost display

keyboard, ensure that optimum operating efficiency is obtained, claims Ferranti.

Ferranti Computer Systems Ltd, Simonsway, Wythenshawe, Manchester M22 SLA, UK

178

DISPLAYS. JULY 1983