Beatles Discovery (1969)

This photo from 1968 accompanied the article

 Beatles Discovery

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Courier Express

March 8, 1969

    If you want something that hasn't been invented ye,t ask Magic Alex. He is the inventor inrResidence of Apple Corp., the company founded by The Beatles. The company is now in financial trouble but that doesn't worry Magic Alex. He works in a laboratory that cost $250,000 to equip, where he turns out  ingenius and low cost items.

     It took him 16 days, for example, to devise a tape recorder without tapes or moving parts. It's the size of a cigarette pack and uses an electron beam and a plastic card to function.

     Alex has also invented a composing typewriter that automatically types the musical notation for any song that is played or sung to it.

     For the Beatles' new recording studio, he has created the machine of 10,000  echos, which makes any music sound as if it is echoing from any given place: a church, beach, mountains.

     Alex is also working on plans for a robot housewife, a machine shaped  like two tennis balls on top of each other and program to do all the housework.

     Magic Alex-- real name John Alexis Martas, came to London two years ago. His father is a former General of the Greek army.

     Alex says that American and Japanese companies have offered him huge sums to work for them, but he prefers Apple Corps., taking from the Beatles only a fraction of what he is worth.    

    The Beatles say they hope to make enough from his inventions to subsidize the handicapped and underprivileged.