European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - December 06, 1994, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 14 the stars and stripes Money matters tuesday december 6,-1994 today s rates following Are fixed rates a which Community banking and credit Union facilities will sell for eign currencies to . Personnel for personal use British Pound 1.60 dutch Guilder. 1.72 German Mark. 1.54 note the rates above apply within the Host country. Figures Are expressed in dollars to the British Pound other currencies to the Dollar following Are Interbank rate that fluctuate and should be regarded As the approximate value of the . Dollar to foreign Curren cies / austrian Schilling. 11.0920 Bahrain Dinar. 0.37675 belgian franc .32.43 British Pound .1.5600canadian Dollar. 1.3713 danish Krone. 6.1640dutch Guilder. 1.7662 French franc. 5.4123 German Mark 1.5767 greek drachma. 243.10 italian lira. 1,618.50 Kuwait Dinar. 0.29975 norwegian Krone. 6.8582 portuguese escudo. 161.08 saudi Royal. 3.7507 Spanish peseta. 131.69 Swiss Iran. 1.3300 turkish lira. 36,550.00 note figures Are expressed in dollars to the British Pound other currencies to the Dollar Gold quote $377.30 an ounce Silver quote $4.74 an ounce " sources merchants National Bank & Trust co. And the associated press n a Santa Ana Calif. A Orang county s highly touted investment fund made big Money for 180 Public agencies the 1980s Way with heavy  strategy and rising interest rates now have caused a $1.5 billion loss. Officials running the fund which held government Bonds said some of the losses came from derivatives Complex securities used to hedge against sudden changes in interest and Exchange rates and other circumstances. Derivatives tied to interest rate plunged this year As rates soared causing much publicized losses for some private companies. News of the fund s loss jolted Wal Street and Washington along with Orange county the prosperous Southern califor Nia area of 2.5 million residents that known for its beaches and Disneyland. House banking committee chairman Henry Gonzalez a Texas Democrat who has crusade for More control of derivatives suggested that the fund managers were just Plain  _ the just thought they could beat the House Gonzalez  Merrill Lynch & co. Stock fell $1.50 to_$36.50 on thursday on the new York Stock Exchange Orange county has Bor rowed billion from the brokerage officials said and rumours were widespread that the firm itself had suffered big losses along with Orange county. Merrill Lynch said there was no truth to the rumours. Joe Mysak editor of Grant s Munici Albond observer newsletter said he expects Many More losses with such Bon funds though probably none As Large As Orange county s. The fund s holdings Are valued at $18.5 billion Down from $20 billion at the begin Ning of the year. Nevertheless Orange county treasurer Robert Citron who has managed the fund for 21 years said he s confident that we can Deal with this  a Small dish suits r 18-Inch receiver putting viewers in program universe new York a the satellite dish once a Symbol of the space age and Ultra High technology has turned into one of the most Down to Earth Home appliances a to receiver. And it s expected to be one of the biggest Sellers this Holiday season. Kenny Weissert bought a Small dish satellite last month and now his 3-year old daughter watches the same cartoons he did growing up. To me that is a plus because a lot of the cartoons today Are so far fetched said Weissert who said the cartoon network is one of the to program serv ices his family can now get in their Home near Ivanhoe Texas. The Ria digital satellite system that Weissert bought is off to the fastest sales launch of any consumer electronics product so fast that it will be hard to find be fore Christmas. The system comes in $700 and $900 configurations and has monthly program fees that Start at $17. Its 18-Inch dish Cap Tures As Many As 175 channels including 25 music services and pay per View mov ies and sports. Thomson consumer electronics Par ent of the Ria Brand began Selling the device in Jackson miss., last summer and rolled it out nationally in september. By year s end it will have sold 600,000, an amount three times greater than the first full year sales of videocassette recorders in 1977. Demand is clearly in excess of sup ply said Michael o Hara general Man Ager for the product at Thomson. We anticipate it s going to remain like that until some time in the second Quarter of 1995." Thomson accelerated production ear Lier than planned and has scaled Back advertising for the system he said. Programming is sold by direct to a unit of pm Hughes electronics corp., and Usab a division of Hubbard broadcast ing  i _. Because the signals Are digital in the language of computers they can be con trolled and cleaned up by the receiver resulting in cd Quality sound and in a clearer picture than Cable television. The Success comes in a year in which a record 25 million televisions Are expected to be sold in the United states a stun with this Little device the Ria digital satellite system to viewers can receive a Many As 175 channels including 25 music services. Ning number considering that there Are 97 million households. Some retailers said the new satellite system is helping sell televisions. We have seen a much bigger demand for better tvs with this because the Pic Ture has such High Resolution and the sound is so much better said Thomas Freeman vice president of merc Haridis ing for sound advice a 21-store electronics retailer based in Dania Fla. The popularity of the dish shows there s room for new technology in television which in the past 20 years has be come dominated by Cable rather than broadcast delivery. It also raises the Prospect of a More prominent role for satellites in data and phone systems Al though that s hard to measure. There s certainly a Niche to be carved out said Scott Pollak telecommunications analyst at g2 research in Mountain View Calif. As to whether this becomes the Way in which More communication is done you bump into the fact we re a i reline society. There s a lot of investment in wired systems and it s hard to let that go.".  " sales of the Ria system have been More broadly based than retailers typically see with a new electronics item. Usually we go through a Cycle of peo ple innovators people who want to be the first on the Block said Chuck Cebu har vice president of Home electronics and Home office products at Sears Roe Buck and co. This is one time where we be got a Cross Section of people buying at the Start More people Are buying it in suburban and Rural areas particularly places with out Access to Cable he said. But dish owner Weissert said t would have his Over Cable any Day i think it will eventually Hurt Cable  he waited several months for his sys tem to come into the Curtis Mathes to store in nearby Bonham Texas. Store owner Terry Roberts sold six Large satellite systems in november to people who were looking for the smaller device Burtion t want to wait. _ the Supply crunch May ease when More companies Start Selling the system possibly in March. Hughes gave Thomson exclusive Selling rights for 18 months or 1 million units whichever came first and it appears it will be the 1 million units. Sony is the second company to have rights to the system. There Are pretty Strong opportunities for years to come said Yuki Nozoe senior vice president of marketing for con Sumer products at Sony electronics corp to time card gives parents Remote control _ Raleigh . A Bill Stewart and two of his friends put their Heads to Gether to solve a common problem thirteen age offspring were turning into Couch potatoes. After some false starts they created advice they called a time Slot. Parents can use this simulated cedi card to Dole out a limited number of hours for watching television and playing video games. Each family member is is sued an individual card which is passed through a Slot to buy tube time. It had to be simple so we hinged it to the credit card said Stewart marketing director for synaptic designs of Raleigh which he co founded with boyhood friends Wayne Poole and Steve Smith. The thing i noticed right off was How Ray kids became misers with their to time Stewart said. They no longer kept the set on a background noise while they were doing something else. And they started watching shows that meant something to them not just a Bunch  thousands of Consumers have paid$149.95 each for the device. What it does More than anything is establish the value of to viewing or video playing time Stewart said. We re no different than any other parents he said. When our children were babies we were ecstatic when they sat in front of the to for 10 minutes. For a Par ent that s 10 minutes of peace and quiet. That quickly grows to 30 minutes andean hour he said. We created a nation of children addicted to to. This is a Wayto realize it s time to wean off of it k the device can Monitor to viewing or video game tune for up to eight people. Parents can allot a specific number of daily viewing hours for each child. The device has an Auto credit function that allots tire to each child s card on a daily basis removing the need for constant resetting. An led display shows the viewing time that s left. Time Slot also can be programmed to Block out particular viewing times Suchias late night hours. The product sold in department stores specially shops and toy stores has won fans among thousands of parents if not their children. One customer wrote i love it. The kids hate