Spotlight on High-Tech at Las Vegas Show : Technology: Orange County firms will unveil new products, including a faster and smaller PC, at the annual Comdex show.

CalComp Inc., an Anaheim computer graphics company, is planning to woo customers to its trade show exhibit booth with a Disney-like video journey aboard a “human reduction vehicle.”

And Advanced Logic Research Inc., an Irvine personal computer maker, plans to re-create a Southern California beach scene at its booth, complete with a 16-foot sailboat, mechanical waterfall and a fluorescent color scheme.

CalComp and ALR are two of about a dozen Orange County high-technology companies that this weekend are putting the final touches on their exhibit booths for the giant Comdex trade show, which begins Monday in Las Vegas.

Another local firm, Archive Corp., of Costa Mesa, will be debuting a new type of computer storage device that incorporates digital audio tape technology.

Personal computer industry experts say the Comdex show will be one of the largest and most interesting in years. Computer makers will be unveiling an array of faster and smaller PCs, including the first machines built to a new design standard intended to challenge International Business Machines’ market dominance.

The five-day, high-tech show is expected to draw more than 110,000 visitors and 1,700 exhibitors to the Nevada desert. Every hotel room in the Las Vegas area has been booked for months. And late registrants are finding that the only rooms available are in Barstow, more than a two-hour drive away.

Since it began 10 years ago, Comdex has been the showcase for the latest and greatest that the fast-changing PC industry has to offer. But next week’s show is generating more talk than usual because of the huge changes that the industry has undergone since last year.

“This is probably going to be one of the most exciting shows in the last five years,” said Joel Don, a spokesman for AST Research Inc., an Irvine personal computer maker. “We believe we’re looking at a major leap in technology for the PC.”

AST will be one of the PC makers that will unveil machines powered by Intel Corp.’s new, ultra-fast i486 microprocessor. The Irvine firm will also be one of the first PC makers to introduce a computer incorporating a new industry design standard known as the Extended Industry Standard Architecture, or EISA. Other companies expected to announce EISA machines include Hewlett-Packard, Olivetti, Grid Systems and Zenith Data Systems.

Introduced in April, the i486 chip crams more than 1 million transistors on a fingernail-size sliver of silicon. The chip is the successor to Intel’s 80386.

EISA is the name for a new computer “bus” design that was developed by a group of nine computer companies, including AST, to challenge a competing IBM design known as Micro Channel. A computer bus is a set of wires that transfer information between the microprocessor and printers and other peripherals.

AST will announce three versions of computers using the i486 and EISA designs. One of AST’s rivals, ALR, is introducing three computer i486 models, including one EISA version.

CalComp, a manufacturer of graphics equipment used in computer-aided design and computer-added engineering applications, is hoping to make a splash with its first product designed for the PC market.

The firm will introduce a new type of computer “mouse,” a pointing device that is rolled across a desktop and used to move a cursor across the computer screen. CalComp said the new product is called “Wiz” and will initially sell for about $250.

“For the first time, CalComp will be stepping out of the engineering and design environment and going after the general-purpose personal computer user,” said CalComp President William Conlin.

CalComp has designed its Comdex exhibit booth especially to show off its new product, including the “human reduction vehicle.” Visitors will enter a darkened booth where they will watch a five-minute video show that will “give the viewer the illusion they are shrunken down” and traveling through space, said company spokesman Richard Stehr.

“It’s sort of like the Stars Tours ride at Disneyland,” he said. “We always tend to have eye-catching booths. We hope it will be the kind of thing where people will say, ‘Hey, did you experience that ride?’ ”