Videodisks at ALA: personal impressions from the ALA midsummer exhibition

With the exception of the voice‐controlled terminal that Dataphase presented (which struck me as the most entertaining exhibit, if not the most practical), digital videodisks and systems using colour VDUs were the two notable gimmicks on show at the American Library Association (ALA) midsummer exhibition held in Dallas, Texas from 23 June to 26 June 1984. In both cases gimmick is a fair description, because none of the exhibitors claimed to have in production a system with either feature.