Innovation, Junior-Size

In the complex and competitive electronics business, the race is to the swift --not necessarily the mighty. Two little-known companies reported that they have beaten out the world's corporate goliaths with important innovations in their fields.

> The world's first portable, transistorized color TV set that is ready for production was introduced by Japan's Yao Electric Co., whose founder, Keijiro Yao, 61, built a wartime radio manufacturing business into a diversified maker of appliances with sales last year of $67.5 million. His compact color TV has an 8-in.-by-6-in. screen, weighs only 19 lbs., and uses a single electron gun in its color tube (bigger U.S. color sets use three electron guns--one each for red, blue and green). Yao will put the set on the market this fall. Plans are to sell it at first for about $360, then bring the price down to $280 as production steps up, and to start exporting next spring to the U.S., where it will sell for about the same price.

> A briefcase-size electronic "computer" was brought out by Italy's one-year-old Industria Macchine Elettrotec-niche, a subsidiary of the country's big Edison Group, which has been investing in other interests since its electric-power plants were nationalized in 1962. The all-transistor computer weighs 30 lbs., requires no more current than a 40-watt bulb and operates up to 50 times as fast as mechanical desk calculators.

It silently adds, subtracts, divides and multiplies as many as eight digits in one-fifth second, can carry out several jobs at once as different operators feed it problems from separate keyboards. Developed by 35-year-old Engineer Massimo Rinaldi and dubbed the IME84, it also has a "memory" system to help solve more complex problems, and is capable of handling payrolls and invoices for medium-sized firms. Its producer already has 10,000 orders from dealers in eleven countries, including the U.S. Price: about $1,700.

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