Electronic Equipment

The timing was perfect when John Koss Sr. and a partner invented stereo headphones using two tiny speakers, chamois pads from old flight helmets and red tubing that looked like licorice. It was 1958, the stereo business was taking off, America would soon meet the Beatles and parents were looking for an escape from their children's blaring rock 'n' roll.

Telecommunications equipment companies produce the guts that make telephones, mobile phones, fax machines, Internet networks and other systems move and switch phone calls and data at blindingly fast speeds. And moving things ahead at a rip-roaring pace is also the perfect metaphor for the equipment makers' stocks this year. A quick look at the price-to-earnings multiples in the accompanying chart illustrates the point: These stocks are among the market's top guns.

It's the case of the missing V-chip. More than a year after the television industry began labeling shows according to their suitability for young audiences, the electronic blocking device that was supposed to link the ratings to TV sets is nowhere to be seen.

A layer of gunk clung to just about everything in the Sepulveda Basin on Monday after flooding from the weekend's storms--hardly surprising for a flood basin. But near the center of the muddy basin stood a 6-foot-high traffic signal control tower, looking clean, shiny and brand new. That's because it was. Every time the basin floods--which it is designed to do during major storms--the electronic control unit has to be replaced with a new unit. The replacement cost: $6,000.

Intel Corp. on Thursday received U.S. approval to buy Digital Equipment Corp.'s chip-making business for $700 million on the condition that Digital license its Alpha technology to two other companies and take steps to allow a third to produce the microprocessor. The Federal Trade Commission said the settlement will ensure that Intel, already the dominant maker of microprocessors for personal computers, doesn't gain exclusive control over the Alpha chip. Advanced Micro Devices Inc.

Members of the San Juan Capistrano Little League plan to install an electronic scoreboard at Hausdorfer Field next month in the San Juan Capistrano Sports Park. The Little League paid $4,000 for the scoreboard. The city will contribute $3,500 toward the $5,000 installation costs and the league will pay the rest. The league also will pay maintenance and repair costs. Additionally, all other leagues using the scoreboard will pay a $10 per-game fee.

The video CD is sweeping across China, and the low-tech consumer electronics revolution is having an impact on California's two most dynamic industries, technology and entertainment. The sudden emergence of the inexpensive video player here is undercutting the conventional wisdom in the consumer electronics industry that acceptance in U.S. and Japanese markets is the critical test for products ranging from the Walkman to the DVD, the digital alternative to videotape.

Game Boy, the popular portable video game system, is expanding its horizons with a new attachment that turns the unit into a digital camera. Nintendo of America Inc. also intends to market a printer that can be used to print photos taken by the game-top camera. The Game Boy camera and printer will go on the market June 1.

Federal regulators are expected today to take the final step in deploying the controversial V-chip technology, which will enable owners of new television sets to block programs that contain objectionable violence or sex. The FCC is expected to order that the V-chip blocking technology be installed in 50% of sets by mid-1999 and 100% of all sets by the end of that year.

A bundle of electronics encased in black, it looks more like a mutant VCR or CD player than the high-tech Holy Grail. But there is more than electronics in this device that the cable television industry calls its next-generation set-top box. It carries the burden of two decades of unkept promises, millions of dollars for failed market trials and the moneymaking dreams of business giants from John Malone to Bill Gates.