Vcr Plus+: Dial M For TheLate-Night Movie

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By Newsweek Editors

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In the fall of 1988, Henry C. Yuen tried to program his VCR to tape a baseball game and failed. This frustrated Yuen, a research scientist with a Ph.D. in applied mathematics from the California Institute of Technology. "I thought that taping a program should be as easy as dialing a telephone," the Shanghai-born Yuen, 43, says. "And why shouldn't TV Guide be like a telephone book?"

That simple idea sparked VCR Plus+. The $60 device lets you tape a program simply by punching in a short numeric code printed next to the show in the local TV schedule. The one thing VCR Plus + can't do is set your VCR's clock. But no problem, says Yuen: "Our product has its own clock. You can keep the clock on the VCR blinking 12 for as long as you like."

Despite the price tag, stores have had trouble keeping VCR Plus+ in stock since its debut last November. "This is the hottest accessory item that we know of in the country today," says electronics buyer Stephen Wahrhaftig of Silo Inc. Yuen's Gemstar Development Corp. expects to sell 3 million units by the year-end; for now, it has the VCR simplification field almost to itself. More than 100 newspapers publish the codes, and this fall all TV Guide editions will sign on. Hardware manufacturers have jumped aboard, too: RCA, General Electric and Zenith brands will soon feature Yuen's technology. To techshy consumers, that news is cause for simple joy,

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