Odetics Makes Contract With RCA for Machine

Odetics Inc. in Anaheim said Friday it will take over the marketing and technical rights to a broadcast cartridge machine it had developed with RCA’s Broadcast Systems division, which RCA is selling off in pieces as it gradually leaves the market.

The purchase contract requires that the price for the rights not be disclosed, said Odetics spokesman Bill Prichard.

The machine, called a TCS-2000, is a computerized cassette playback-and-record system designed to automate broadcast programming at television stations. The machine consists of a 6 1/2-foot octagonal tower, which television stations fill with cassettes; a robotic manipulator with four arms to move along the tower and pick out and replace casettes; a recorder, where the robotic arms deliver the casettes; and an IBM PC-AT computer to program the robotic machine’s format for an entire day of broadcasting.