INTO THE SPOTLIGHT / TOM REITER : THE O.J. SIMPSON MURDER TRIAL : High-Tech Job Is Role of a Lifetime : Court’s electronics expert is in charge of a daunting array, including video evidence display system. A glitch could delay the trial, and the onetime actor admits to some stage fright.

Let’s get one thing straight. Tom Reiter is no computer geek.

The silver-haired man with the gravelly DJ voice dreamed of being an actor in the grand tradition of his hero, Peter O’Toole. But after his bit soap opera part dried up, he learned how to program computers to pay the bills.

Fifteen years later, Reiter, 40, is one of Los Angeles’ top techno-legal gurus. When the Simpson trial opens today, Reiter will debut as the court’s lead electronics expert, orchestrating a daunting array of equipment. The system will, among other things, allow jurors to instantly view video images of evidence--enlarged if necessary--and give lawyers immediate access to transcribed testimony.

It’s a role that is causing Reiter far more stage fright than any of his roles as an actor.

“My worst nightmare is that I come in in the morning, and the equipment won’t work,” said Reiter, part-owner of a firm brought in by Superior Court Judge Lance A. Ito to perform technological wizardry rarely seen before in the courtroom.

“We’re setting up disc players, an overhead projector, videocassette recorders, computer monitors,” he said. “It’s a pretty awesome job, and it all comes together at the last minute. Until everything is up and running, I won’t be getting much sleep.”

Even the smallest glitch in the system could hang up the trial for hours, making the world wait. Reiter, although churning on the inside, is trying to keep a positive outlook.

“If I wasn’t worried about it, something would go wrong,” he said. “But since I’m nervous, maybe that’s a good indication we’re in pretty good shape.”

All last week, he worked late at the courthouse, installing more than $100,000 worth of equipment.

He suspended an 87-inch video screen, capable of displaying evidence, including documents, photographs, charts, videos or even animation, over the witness stand. He set up an overhead projector as well as two laser disc players and a videocassette player on a platform in front of the spectator seats.

He installed computer monitors on the defense and prosecution tables, where attorneys can call up evidence with the swipe of an electronic pen on a bar code. And in the back corner of the courtroom, he set up a booth where he and other technicians will coordinate the equipment by computer.

All this from a man who admits that he can’t program his home VCR.

“Actually, I’ve never sat down and looked at the book,” Reiter said. It’s a matter of time, which he hasn’t had much of lately.

“I’ve been working 14 or 15 hours a day, getting things set up in the courtroom,” he said. “That’s on top of a couple of hundred hours of design time.”

Reiter started in the electronics business in 1979, when it became clear that his acting career was going nowhere. His role as a hotel manager in “All My Children” was cut, and he could get cast only as a hunk in beer commercials.

Finally, a friend got Reiter a job at a Canoga Park firm that copied legal documents onto microfiche. As computers hit the market and the company expanded, Reiter went to night school to learn database management and programming, eventually focusing on courtroom electronics. In 1993 he started his own business, called Trial Presentation Technologies, with several partners.

Reiter’s company, which he operates out of his Culver City home, approached Ito in August to offer its equipment and services without charge. The firm had already set up a similar system in Judge George Trammell’s courtroom and was eager to take on the high-profile murder case.

At Trammell’s urging, Ito agreed to take advantage of the new courtroom technology. Reiter finally got his big break.

“It’s probably the single best opportunity to educate the legal field to the capabilities of new technology,” Reiter said. “That’s the noble reason.”

And the less noble reason? Any old thespian could answer that question: Just a moment of fame, and more business.

Besides that, he said: “Maybe I’ll give hope to all those other people who can’t program their VCR.”

Into the Spotlight will be an occasional feature of The Times’ Simpson trial coverage.