Playboy's Wonder Wall

Since Playboy's last appraisal of audiovisual componentry and suggestions for domesticating it (see Playboy Plans a Duplex Penthouse, January 1970), the electronics revolution has proceeded at a frantic pace, with concepts being introduced that weren't even dreamed of a few years ago; at the same time, those units considered the heart of any home-entertainment system have been steadily improved and redesigned.

To offer our readers a glimpse of what the revolution will bring tomorrow, playboy has designed its own Wonder Wall--a marvelously compact combination of modern electronic miracles integrated into a single wall, free of the welter of connecting cables and the confusion of competing instrument panels, with a remote-control console accessible to a couple (continued on page 200) Wonder Wall (continued from page 124) lounging on the living-room couch. While probing the possibilities inherent in the electronics of the immediate future, we've incorporated existing developments, many of which are available today at your local dealer. The major exception is the main display screen, which utilizes a liquid crystal, a recent development currently in limited laboratory use.

Decoratively, our electronic wall is a model of elegant simplicity, consisting of functional panels of opaque Lucite mounted on tracks recessed into the ceiling and floor so they can easily be shifted to get at the wiring behind. Dominating the central panel and, in fact, the room itself is the huge liquid-crystal screen. Directly to the right is the main control board and to the right of that, a sliding panel of matching Lucite designed to cover the tape reels, monitor screen and main controls when they're not in use. When closed, only the display screen, a sculptured wall speaker on the left, a storage area for tape reels and records on the right and another sculptured wall speaker at far right are visible. The speakers themselves, acoustically identical, are deliberately different in appearance to break up the monotony of matched stereo speakers and to lend a provocative, unusual look to the wall itself.

Although the liquid-crystal screen should prove to be the center of attraction for most of your guests, when curiosity has been sated and interest starts to lapse, you can use the projector, located just behind the display screen, to show slides, commercial motion pictures or your own Super-8 efforts on an opposing wall screen. (When not in use, the main display screen is completely transparent, permitting the use of the projector behind it; the slot in the righthand sliding panel is designed for projector use when the panel is closed. In use, as shown in one of the smaller illustrations, the screen is opalescent and the projector is effectively hidden from view.)

Our coffee-table console is essentially a duplicate of the main control panel, and a small, hand-held remote enables you to make adjustments in sonically or visually presented material from other locations within the room when you're either disinclined or unable to man the central control board. Not shown are acoustically balanced speakers for quadri-phonic sound at either end of the opposite wall and remote speakers in other rooms.

Technically speaking, the Wonder Wall borrows a leaf from NASA and applies the systems approach to the home-entertainment center, to eliminate duplicate and confusing controls and to impart an essential smoothness to its operation. It also allows for the grouping of similar controls and permits a logical sequencing of programs originating outside the home (television, radio, facsimile, etc.) and of material you wish to schedule for the evening's festivities (records, audio and visual tapes, cassettes, etc.). The wall also permits the audio and visual taping of friends and business associates when they call on the Picturephone, as well as the screening, via remote cameras, of Avon ladies and survey takers at the pad's outer doors.

Our futuristic multipurpose main screen shows standard television broadcasts, cable-television (CATV) programing, video tapes (prerecorded, those you may have recorded off the air and those creative efforts made with your own porta-pak video-tape equipment), plus facsimile reproduction of print material such as newspapers (we haven't yet come up with a filter to eliminate the bad news) and blowups of Picturephone callers or of visitors. Finally, the panel behind the liquid-crystal screen, as shown in the large illustration, can be used for a color/light show that randomly responds to musical program material--or that can present its swirling tides of color in total silence, if you prefer, with you controlling the shape and flow of the various hues while taking your ease.

Topping the main control panel is an independent 14-inch TV monitor to preview what you wish to show on the main screen or to scan other channels when the plot of the late-night movie becomes too depressingly familiar. The row of buttons directly beneath the monitor screen is to help you program your evening by selecting the devices you wish turned on--television, tape recorders, light show, facsimile, etc. Once on, they'll be at the ready when you wish to instantly switch program material.

Below this row are two laboratory oscilloscopes bound to fascinate technically minded friends; they can be used for distortion analysis of whatever component you may be using or to check the accuracy of your tuning or the precision of a station's own transmission. The scopes can also be used as trouble-shooting devices, monitoring not only incoming signals but the signal output from your various amplifiers and tuning devices. No signal, or one that doesn't measure up, and you've located the defective unit. Controls and indicator lights for them are directly beneath the oscilloscopes.

The main portion of the control panel, the pulse beat of the Wonder Wall, lies just below the oscilloscopes. On the left is a digital keyboard similar to that of a telephone, on which you can punch up any of the functions of the wall--standard television or CATV broadcasts, FM, AM or short-wave radio, facsimile-print reproduction, any of the various audio and visual tape-playing facilities, the recording units, the color/light show, projected slides and films, or the playback of recorded messages and surveillance tapes. (Your problem--and that of your guests--lies not in what you can or can't do with the wall but in making up your mind what you want to do with it.)

To the right of the keyboard is a row of "slider" switches for preset volume control of the various audio functions, as well as for intensity control of the visual ones. When you switch from a television show at moderate volume and wish soft music, that's what you'll get, not a blast of sound that may shatter a mood or wound sensitive eardrums. At far right in the same row are still more slider switches for color adjustment of all the video systems. The next row of switches allows you to tune the frequency response of the wall to compensate for the acoustics of the room itself. In essence, this system enables you to hear the original acoustics of the recording hall, as opposed to those of your living room. If you really want to hear the New York Philharmonic at Lincoln Center, sonically speaking you'll be there.

Preprograming your evening, to allow for the transition from $1,000,000 worth of talent on the big screen to more intimate entertainment endeavors, is the function of the two rows of buttons beneath the banks of vertical slider switches. The first of these is for the preselection and sequencing of program material--television broadcasts, radio programs, recorded tapes--whatever fits your fancy. These are the buttons with which to pace the evening; you may want to start with Laugh-In, break for a light show, follow with a video-taped feature film and finish with quiet music.

Controlling the light show is the function of the next row of buttons, with which you can lend a vertical or a horizontal accent to the swirl of colors on the screen, program in cluster and branching effects and give the colors well-defined or diffuse edges. The readout strips directly below these buttons are for the tuning and recording systems. The left strip indicates the call letters as well as the frequency of any FM or AM stations to which you may be tuned; it will also indicate short-wave call letters and frequencies if you're in the mood for something exotic. The right readout strip, for the recording units, shows which track is playing and indicates the footage run off.

The tabs below these readout strips are the switching adjustments for all the audio-recording systems: dubbing controls, input monitoring and special editing effects for those users who are semiprofessionals. Slots for video and audio cartridges and for cassettes come next, with their own readout strips immediately above, indicating track selection and the amount of tape played. The last bank of tabs handles the switching adjustments for the visual recording systems.

The motor-driven devices on the main control board, usually hidden from view by the sliding panel, include two audiotape recorders, both equipped with automatic threading and reverse and capable of holding 10-1/2-inch reels of tape. Below the audio recorders is a reel well for video tapes, either prerecorded or blank. The last device in the vertical stack is the turntable, featuring a straight-line tracking tonearm and a photoelectronic cartridge. When not in use, the turntable fits snugly into the wall as shown; when you wish to play it, it swings gently out to the horizontal.

Should you tire of watching the enchantments of the Wonder Wall itself, you can turn on the projector and be turned on yourself by slides, commercial films or your latest Super-8 cinéma-vérité opus projected on the wall screen opposite. Adjustments for the projector lie below the lens and can be reached by sliding the main display screen slightly to the left. The projector itself has an adjustable zoom lens to handle the different focal lengths involved; a dual-transport mechanism allows for the loading of both slide carrousels and automatic-threading film cassettes.

Not shown in the main illustration is the rooftop antenna, which can be rotated from the main or remote instrument consoles. Partly hidden behind the sliding panel at far right are storage areas for your collection of phonograph records and tapes, as well as prerecorded video tapes and those you may have recorded off the air. All recording and playback tape units, as well as the phonograph pickup, can handle four-channel material; the audio tuners are likewise equipped with decoders for receiving broadcast quadriphonic programs. Built-in Dolby noise-reduction circuitry allows for absolutely quiet broadcast reception as well as playing and recording of tapes.

The two remote units enable you to control the Wonder Wall, in part or in full, from a distance. The main remote is a duplicate of the primary control panel, connected to it by cable and minus only the monitor screen, test scopes and less important switches. The more limited hand-held remote, with its tiny built-in transmitter, enables you to punch up any one function of the wall and then make adjustments with the rotary controls. For instance, you can punch FM radio as the function and then adjust the volume and change the station frequency with the control knob. The readout window in the base of the unit indicates frequency, units in use, etc. On taped material, the digital tab labeled REP allows you to repeat a selection, while pressing the tab marked DIS (for display) permits the control of color balance and intensity of visually presented material via the rotary knobs. The remote unit also has facilities for fast forward and reverse of taped material.

If you're away from home and wish to turn on the set for recording purposes, you can address the wall with a phone call. Although the various control panels allow for the preprograming of material and for the wall to turn itself on and off at preset times, the outside phone call gives you the benefit of a backup system in case you forget--or in case your plans are suddenly changed and your date decides she's amenable to canapés and drinks at your place after all.

The purely futuristic element of the wall, the one device that would startle even an astronaut, is the liquid-crystal screen. Although not yet at your local television salon, chances are good that it will be available in the not-too-far-off future (though not necessarily in the form we've presented). The liquid-crystal material is transparent, flows like water and takes the shape of any container into which it's poured. Its molecules, nevertheless, are arranged in orderly patterns much like those in quartz or diamonds. When an electric current passes through it, the liquid clouds and becomes opalescent, reflecting light. For viewing, a screen made of such material could be sidelighted if the room were dark, or it could reflect the normal lighting of the room, or, if you wanted a very bright picture, spotlights could be shone onto the screen. Since the unit generates no light of its own, internal power requirements are small. RCA has already used liquid crystals in making a small, flat television screen that offers potentially excellent resolution and contrast. Larger screens as thin as a pane of glass and capable of showing color are a distinct possibility.

Playboy's Wonder Wall, while obviously a product of the imagination as well as of hard technical knowledge, is also a forecast of things to come in the field of electronics and an indication of what will someday be de rigueur for a handsomely accoutered pad. And if you think some of the features we've included won't come to pass until long after 2001, think again. It was, if you'll recall, only 14 years ago that the Russians sent up Sputnik I--and today Americans are driving across the surface of the moon.