General Instrument was an electronics

Electronics

Electronics is the branch of science, engineering and technology that deals with electrical circuits involving active electrical components such as vacuum tubes, transistors, diodes and integrated circuits, and associated passive interconnection technologies...

 manufacturer based in Horsham

Horsham, Pennsylvania

Horsham is a census-designated place in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 14,842 at the 2010 census. Horsham is located entirely within Horsham Township, and it is home to Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base Willow Grove.In 2007, Horsham was named the 15th best...

, PA

Pennsylvania

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...

 specializing in semiconductor

Semiconductor

A semiconductor is a material with electrical conductivity due to electron flow intermediate in magnitude between that of a conductor and an insulator. This means a conductivity roughly in the range of 103 to 10−8 siemens per centimeter...

s and cable television

Cable television

Cable television is a system of providing television programs to consumers via radio frequency signals transmitted to televisions through coaxial cables or digital light pulses through fixed optical fibers located on the subscriber's property, much like the over-the-air method used in traditional...

 equipment. The company was active until 1997, when it split into General Semiconductor (power semiconductors) which was later acquired by Vishay Intertechnology

Vishay Intertechnology

Vishay Intertechnology, Inc. , is one of the world's largest manufacturers of discrete semiconductors and passive electronic components. Vishay has manufacturing plants in Israel, Asia, Europe, and the Americas where it produces rectifiers, diodes, MOSFETs, optoelectronics, selected integrated...

 in 2001, CommScope and NextLevel Systems (the cable and satellite TV division, which later reverted to GI name). The new (post-split) General Instrument Corporation was later acquired by Motorola

Motorola

Motorola, Inc. was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, which was eventually divided into two independent public companies, Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions on January 4, 2011, after losing $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009...

 and became Motorola Connected Home Solutions, and was renamed Home and Networks Mobility in 2007. When Motorola split on January 4, 2011, this division became part of Motorola Mobility

Motorola Mobility

Motorola Mobility Holdings, Inc. , formerly the Mobile Devices division of Motorola Inc. until January 2011, is a communications corporation headquartered in Libertyville, Illinois, a Chicago suburb. Motorola's networks division pioneered the flip phone with the StarTAC in the mid-1990s...

. Moses Shapiro, father of former Monsanto head Robert B. Shapiro

Robert B. Shapiro

Robert B. Shapiro is a businessman and attorney who has worked extensively with the biochemical corporations G.D. Searle and Monsanto Company. Before working in this sector he was Vice-President and legal counsel at General Instrument from 1972 to 1979...

, was Chairman from 1969 to 1975. Frank G. Hickey served as CEO from 1975 to 1990, and Donald Rumsfeld

Donald Rumsfeld

Donald Henry Rumsfeld is an American politician and businessman. Rumsfeld served as the 13th Secretary of Defense from 1975 to 1977 under President Gerald Ford, and as the 21st Secretary of Defense from 2001 to 2006 under President George W. Bush. He is both the youngest and the oldest person to...

 did from 1990 to 1993.

VideoCipher Division

General Instrument produced receivers for old C

C band

The C band is a name given to certain portions of the electromagnetic spectrum, including wavelengths of microwaves that are used for long-distance radio telecommunications. The IEEE C-band - and its slight variations - contains frequency ranges that are used for many satellite communications...

 and Ku band

Ku band

The Kμ band is a portion of the electromagnetic spectrum in the microwave range of frequencies. This symbol refers to —in other words, the band directly below the K-band...

 satellites. They also produced Videocipher

Videocipher

VideoCipher is a brand name of analog scrambling and de-scrambling equipment for cable and satellite television invented primarily to keep consumer Television receive-only satellite equipment from receiving TV programing except on a subscription basis. It was invented in 1983 by Linkabit...

 units as well as digital equipment. 4DTV

4DTV

4DTV is the name of a Television receive-only consumer satellite television tuner technology manufactured by Motorola for use with large-diameter parabolic satellite dish antennas on the C and Ku frequency bands on multiple satellites...

 was a system for picking up free and encrypted analog and digital satellite subscription channels. It also included an interactive guide. The product line included:

• 2700 Series: on screen displays, C/Ku switching, digital sound, satellite memory increases with the model number.

• 2600 Series: similar to 2400 except with on-screen displays.

• 2400/2500 Series: no on-screen displays, everything is controlled from the remote and front panel. Two alphanumeric displays indicate the current satellite and transponder. A GI 2000PS is needed to use a dish motor. Digital Stereo Audio is available on VideoCipher channels, C/Ku compatible. The 2400 was re-branded in the early 90s by Rural Cable and sold with a fixed C band dish pointed at Galaxy 5.

• 350 Regular: simple receiver with a separate dish mover (some will have a stationary G5 satellite).

• 350i Super: extensive on-screen displays, 50 satellites (C or Ku with external switch), digital sound.

• 450i/550i/650i: extensive on-screen displays, C/Ku pre-programmed satellites, digital sound, extras.

• 4DTV: interactive program guide, two favorite lists, C/Ku band, many other features.

• InfoCipher 1500P: an early satmodem
  Satellite modem
  A satellite modem or sat modem is a modem used to establish data transfers using a communications satellite as a relay.There is a wide range of satellite modems from cheap devices for home internet access to expensive multifunctional equipment for enterprise use.A "modem" stands for...
  
   used with one-way data services such as X*Press X*Change.

American Totalisator Corporation/AmTote

American Totalisator

American Totalisator

The American Totalisator Company, formally known today as AmTote International and often referred to simply as AmTote, is a company which specializes in totalisator equipment used to control parimutuel betting at horse racing , greyhound racing and jai-alai facilities.The company was founded by...

 was a division of General Instrument Corp. It manufactured tote board

Tote board

A tote board is a large numeric or alphanumeric display used to convey information, typically at a race track or at a telethon .The term "tote board" comes from the colloquialism for totalizator , the name for the automated...

s for the horse racing

Horse racing

Horse racing is an equestrian sport that has a long history. Archaeological records indicate that horse racing occurred in ancient Babylon, Syria, and Egypt. Both chariot and mounted horse racing were events in the ancient Greek Olympics by 648 BC...

 industry. It is now owned by horse-track operator Magna Entertainment Corporation

Magna Entertainment Corporation

MI Developments Inc. , formerly known as Magna Entertainment Corp., is a gambling and horse racing company in North America with several holdings in Europe and Australia, and is North America's largest thoroughbred racing company, based on revenue and holdings...

.

Jerrold

Jerrold

Jerrold Electronics

Jerrold Electronics was a provider of cable television equipment, including subscriber converter boxes, distribution network equipment , and headend equipment in the United States.-History:...

 was GI's original cable TV brand, active from 1948 into the early 1990s. Around 1993, GI dropped the Jerrold branding. The Jerrold brand was prominent on both addressable and non-addressable cable TV converter boxes that were used on non-cable ready sets and cable-ready sets with premium pay services. "Jerrold" is the middle name of the company's founder, Milton Jerrold Shapp

Milton Shapp

Milton Jerrold Shapp was the 40th Governor of the U.S. state of Pennsylvania from 1971 to 1979 and was the first Jewish governor of Pennsylvania.- Early life :...

, who became Pennsylvania's 40th governor in 1971.

GI Microelectronics

GI Microelectronics was a manufacturer of LSI circuits and a pioneer in MOS

MOSFET

The metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor is a transistor used for amplifying or switching electronic signals. The basic principle of this kind of transistor was first patented by Julius Edgar Lilienfeld in 1925...

 technology and EAROM (Electrically Alterable ROM), with both off-the-shelf and custom circuits. GI spun the division off as Microchip Technology

Microchip Technology

Microchip Technology is an American manufacturer of microcontroller, memory and analog semiconductors. Its products include microcontrollers , Serial EEPROM devices, Serial SRAM devices, KEELOQ devices, radio frequency devices, thermal, power and battery management analog devices, as well as...

 in 1987.

In 1980, their product catalog included:

• 16-bit Microprocessor: CP1600
  General Instrument CP1600
  The CP1600 was a 16-bit microprocessor created in a partnership between General Instrument and Honeywell in the 1970s. The CP1600's design was based on the PDP-11, whose design also formed the basis of the Western Digital MCP-1600 and influenced others...
  
   and 1610, a 16-bit CPU, used in the GIMINI TV-game set and in Mattel
  Mattel
  Mattel, Inc. is the world's largest toy company based on revenue. The products it produces include Fisher Price, Barbie dolls, Hot Wheels and Matchbox toys, Masters of the Universe, American Girl dolls, board games, and, in the early 1980s, video game consoles. The company's name is derived from...
  
  's Intellivision
  Intellivision
  The Intellivision is a video game console released by Mattel in 1979. Development of the console began in 1978, less than a year after the introduction of its main competitor, the Atari 2600. The word intellivision is a portmanteau of "intelligent television"...
  
  
• 8-bit Microcontroller: the PIC1650, an NMOS
  NMOS logic
  N-type metal-oxide-semiconductor logic uses n-type metal-oxide-semiconductor field effect transistors to implement logic gates and other digital circuits...
  
   chip. The CMOS
  CMOS
  Complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor is a technology for constructing integrated circuits. CMOS technology is used in microprocessors, microcontrollers, static RAM, and other digital logic circuits...
  
   version of this chip is the basis of today's PIC microcontroller
  PIC microcontroller
  PIC is a family of Harvard architecture microcontrollers made by Microchip Technology, derived from the PIC1650 originally developed by General Instrument's Microelectronics Division...
  
  s.
• ROM
• EAROM
• Telecommunications chips

Other products included the famous AY-3-8910/11/12/14 series of sound chip

Sound chip

A sound chip is an integrated circuit designed to produce sound . It might be doing this through digital, analog or mixed-mode electronics...

s, the AY-3-85xx, 86xx, 87xx series of game chips and a single-chip speech synthesizer, the SP0256 Narrator. A version of the SP0256 appeared in Mattel's Intellivoice

Intellivoice

The Intellivoice Voice Synthesis Module was an adapter for the Intellivision, Mattel's home gaming console, that utilized a voice synthesizer to generate audible speech...

. The popular SP0256-AL2 variant comes with a set of allophones built in.