European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - July 27, 1988, Darmstadt, Hesse                                By Steve Robrahn associated press projectionist Willie Brewer flipped a switch at the Mountain View drive in in Stanton ky., sending a Stream of film into some humming equipment that quickly shot a powerful beam of Light Over car roofs to a huge screen. The Warner Bros logo that appeared was visible to motorists driving up the Mountain Parkway into Eastern Kentucky where As in other parts of the country Only a handful of drive in Heaters survive in an Era of video rentals and High land values. I Don t know Why people Aren t coming now like they did two years ago said David Baker who has owned the theater since 1957. Business is Down. Vars have Hurt us More than anything else that has come Down the  Baker frowned. About one third of his Grassy parking spaces were filled a disappointing turnout for a saturday night especially considering that the Mountain View was showing family oriented first run films. Baker s frustrations Are shared by the owners of other drive in Heaters across the country. The new York based National association of theater owners reports 2,074 drive in movie screens were in operation last year. That compares to 3,670 drive in Heaters operating 20 years ago including hundreds that had two or More screens and the Peak of 4,063 drive in Heaters in 1958, according to the association. Malcom Green president of the theater owners group said several factors have prompted the decline in drive ins including suburban real estate development the faded Novelty of automobiles smaller numbers of traditional families and Competition from Multi screen Heaters in shopping malls. I can t see where there s much Hope for a turnaround especially with the High land values said Green who is senior vice president of hosts cinemas corp., a Large East coast theater Chain based in Boston. Drive in Heaters were highly popular immediately after world War ii Green said adding that their Golden age lasted from around 1950 to about 1970, when the Industry entered slow but steady decline. Most of the outdoor Heaters were built before 1960 on plots larger than 12 acres usually far outside of a City on Well travelled highways Green said. In the 1960s and 1970s, cities expanded and land values increased but the outdoor Heaters Only generated Money after dark and in Good weather. Drive ins became suburban Green said. The land became valuable. It became too valuable to devote to a seasonal  loading the kids into the family car for an Outing to the drive in or just for an aimless drive were common evening activities in the 1950s and Early 1960s, Green said. People now Are less devoted to driving around in a car Green said. The idea of just sitting in a car has  drive ins which often show the same films for one to three weeks also have a will video phones catch on by Deborah Mesce associated press nearly a Quarter Century after visitors to the 1964 Newyork world s fair we reintroduced to the picture phone the see As you talk concept is being offered again. The Cost is lower but so is the technology. Unlike the moving images of the picture phone which let fair goers see As Well As hear the person on the other end of the wire the new devices produce Only a freeze Frame shot. American Industry analysts still question whether the Home video phone s time has come. They re not driving in the Way they used to "ttrrraflf-twawwfwsfrtijsrsrefit"bl\ii4iii i or a i la Tough time competing with indoor Heaters with multiple screens that offer several films at the same time Green said. Many drive ins lost their qualifications to show first run movies in the 1970s and switched to action oriented films frequently with sexual themes Green said. As a result parents stopped taking children to drive ins and a generation has missed the outdoor movie experience he said. Jack Absher who owns indoor Heaters with 15 screens in Eastern Kentucky closed the Prestonsburg drive in the last of three drive ins he once owned two years ago. Unlike Green he sees Only one reason for the decline of drive ins. I blame it solely on Daylight savings time Absher said. When Daylight saving time was introduced permanently in the late 1960s, the starting time for summer drive in movies went from about 8 . To around 9 . Many people Absher said found they could no longer attend and then get up in time to go to work in the morning. But in Stanton children can still watch the movies on blankets next to their parents car. The smell of Popcorn continues to fill the night air As shadowy figures make their Way to the Concession stand amid the soundtrack Echos from hundreds of window speakers. And Baker says he plans to hold out until the drive in movie business booms again or outdoor Heaters become so scarce that people will drive Long distances to View his big screen. People will come Back he predicted. I think one of these Days people will go out looking for a drive in  to phone with still image a Eon la made by Mitsubishi affiliate firm in the . The Issue is behaviour said a. Michael Noll a professor of communications at the University of Southern California who worked for american Telephone & Telegraph co. In new product planning in the mid-1970s. Using the Telephone is Akin to whispering in the ear. Seeing somebody almost destroys the intimacy of the communication he said. When we ask an audience whether they want to see on the phone half or More say  Mitsubishi officials recognize the psychological Barrier picture phone ran into but the company believes its visited visual phone display unit introduced in the United states last november will fare better. Visited the Only consumer product of its kind now on the . Market has a camera Lens that projects the user s image onto a Black and White 4.5-Inch screen. The image can be transmitted to another visited user in about five seconds. Since the unit uses Ordinary phone lines the same calling rates apply when the visited is used As when an Ordinary phone is used. This is a passive product said Tim Beck National sales manager for the visual telecommunications division of Mitsubishi electric sales of America. It s not like picking up the phone and immediately your picture is there. It Only transmits when you hit the Send key he said. Beck said visit Els retailing for about $400 each Are Selling very  the company has orders for about 64,000 units and has delivered about 36,000 of them he said. Two other japanese companies Sony corp. And Matsushita s Panasonic division Are planning to put similar products on the Market by Christmas. A variety of companies such As picture Tel corp. Of Peabody mass., sell devices that transmit moving images but those Are More expensive and require higher Grade phone lines. They Are mostly for businesses. At to s picture phone initially was aimed at the residential caller. At to set up phones at Central locations in new York Chicago and Washington. People could place Calls from a picture phone at one of these locations to a picture phone at another location where family or friends would be awaiting their pre arranged Call at to said it would extend service to other parts of the country if demand was Large enough and a june 1964 press release said there is no telling when picture phone sets in the Home will be As common As telephones Are  the problem was the technology was just ahead of its time. There was t the demand for it said Gary whaite manager of at to s corporate staff for teleconferencing application development. People did t want themselves seen in what you would Call the private Home environment. It just was t appealing to the  it was also expensive to install and to use. Rates ranged from $16 to $27 for the first three minutes at one of the picture phone centers. Installing a picture phone in someone s Home would have Cost thousands of dollars for special wiring to connect the device to the phone network. At to eventually turned its attention away from residential prospects and focused on the business Community. Businesses were More receptive to two Way video but the growth of what came to be known As teleconferencing was also slow because of the High Cost of equipment and the special circuits required. Even by the late 1970s, it Cost about half a million dollars to equip a room wit video monitors cameras and special wiring whaite said. Technological advances began bringing the Cost Down significantly in the 1980s and by the mid-1980s teleconferencing was becoming More attractive to companies trying to Cut travel costs and open More lines of communication. Now an estimated 150 to 200 companies have their own teleconferencing networks ranging in size from two to 45 Sites said Elliot m. Gold a teleconferencing consultant based in Altadena Calif. Technology has much further to go before moving pictures can be transmitted Over Ordinary phone lines at reasonable costs to the consumer and estimates of when that will happen Range from seven to 10 years at the earliest. But even when the technology develops Many see acceptance in the business Community As the key to unlocking the residential Market for video phones. Business started with personal computers and then they went into the Home. It followed the business application because lots of people take their work Home whaite said. Home video phones will follow the same pattern but it will probably be a slower evolution. And it will never get to the proportions it will in the business environment he said. Noll is More sceptical. I Don t think the problem is technology. I think it s behaviour he said. There is something inherent in people and the Way they communicate that does t fit into Inis technology. We re 20 years into this idea see As you talk phones and everybody is predicting it s going to take off and it does t take off. That should Tell us  zipping along for 25 years by Steven d. Stark new York times some hailed it As the most promising innovation in the delivery of the mail since the founding of the postal service in colonial times. Others wrote editorials calling it the ultimate in regimentation and that it symbolized a Case of numerical  Twenty five years ago this month zip codes made their controversial appearance on the american scene. Today the five digit code at the end of addresses is credited with streamlining mail delivery. By bringing the postal service into the age of automation zip codes the acronym stands for zone improvement plan allowed machines to do most of the mail sorting. But the postal service inadvertently did More than change How mail is sorted and delivered. It also guaranteed that residents of Manhattan zip code 10021 on the upper East Sid would get solicitations for Gold credit cards and condominiums while manhattanite in zip code 10032 in Harlem would be asked to buy bargain life insurance. The zip code system has helped determine everything from where the army looks for recruits to where Ringling Brothers puts its circuses. Some Community activists say it has also allowed some companies and Banks to redline the practice of restricting customers Access to credit because of where they live. All in All the zip code did nothing less than change America s Way of doing business. It applied Aristotle s proverbial principle to direct marketing Birds of a Feather flock together. It electrified the marketing Community said Peter Hoke publisher of direct marketing Magazine an Industry publication. Zip codes became a tool for businesses to become far More interested in  direct marketers who initially griped that changing their address plates and punch card systems would put them out of business Learned to love the system. For the first time marketers had a Clear unit that identified people with similar demographics said Bob delay editor of the delay letter a direct marketing newsletter. Before businesses tended to Divide customers by City county or state. These subdivisions Don t make much sense because they Don t collect similar  in a few years marketers May be making that criticism about zip codes. Categories like the census Block group which zeroes in on about 350 households at a time Are beginning to supplant the five digit system. More and More Large mailing lists Are coded with Block group information said Paul Davies director of the Advance marketing systems group of Caci International inc., which Sells demographic data to companies. But Back in the Early 1960s, the zip was considered almost dangerously newfangled. It came around the same time As the phone company was moving to seven digit numbers said postmaster general j. Edward Day who implemented the change. So there was All this talk about big  to sell the system to the Public Day mailed postcards to every household the largest single mailing up to that Point. He also ran commercials featuring a cartoon character or. Zip and hired Ethel Merman to sing a Jingle to the tune of zip a Dee Doo Dah Welcome the zip code learn it today Send your mail out the five digit Way. We had to promote it because we could t Promise the Public that the mail would go any faster if they used it said Day now a Semi retired lawyer. There were Only a limited number of sorting  Day even worried about what numbers would be chosen for the zip code map. Chicago was Given 606," he remembered. When i was in College there that was the name of one of the a Laziest nightclubs in the City. I was afraid somebody might make something out of that but nobody  they might have had they known the name s origin. "606" was the Trade name of Asp Henaine an Early remedy for syphilis discovered by Paul Erlich who tested 605 other compounds before finding the right drug a new voluntary version of the zip which added four More numbers was introduced in 1983. But the five digit zip has been the one most commonly used. It divides the country into 10 major sections the first digit in the number and into Many More sectional hubs in cities or neighbourhoods that Are centers of local transportation the next two numbers. The last two numbers usually represent an individual Post office or neighbourhood. Each of the nation s 43,000 zip codes hold an average of 4,000 families in some cities the number can reach 10,000. The exact number of zip codes changes almost daily As Post offices open and close to reflect the movement of families around the country. 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