July 19, 1991

"YOU know what?" Roy asked. "That fish smiled at me." The 3-year-old with his own jumbo smile and a zillion and one questions was reveling in his first trip to the Bronx Zoo, home of 4,362 animals representing 674 species, the largest urban zoo in America. In a city where so much so often disappoints, this is a fairy tale of a place, 265 acres where everything from buffalos to lizards with tongues longer than their bodies roam in lushly landscaped splendor.

East Side Rezoning Alliance Third Avenue Summer Festival: Third Avenue will be closed Sunday from 42d to 57th Street from 10 A.M to 6 P.M.

Texas Instruments Inc. reported the largest quarterly loss in its history today, only moments after disclosing that it faced a legal battle in Japan to protect valuable computer chip patents. The loss of $157 million contrasted with net income of $11 million, or 2 cents a share, a year earlier. The electronics manufacturer attributed the loss mostly to charges involved in programs to cut an additional 3,200 jobs in its global operations. Sales rose 6.3 percent, to $1.69 billion.

In the decade since it pioneered the portable computer, the Compaq Computer Corporation has always steered clear of one country: Japan, the world's second-largest computer market and home to the companies that have come to dominate the laptop PC business. But today, Compaq announced that it would finally take the plunge and begin marketing Japanese-language versions of its machines next year.

The nation's trade deficit widened slightly in May for the second straight month, the Government said today. But the $4.6 billion imbalance reflected strong exports and was the third-best showing in eight years. The gap with Japan, long the largest segment of the deficit, narrowed to $2.4 billion for the month. The figure was the slimmest difference with Japan since a $1.8 billion gap in February 1984. In May, imports of Japanese cars dropped by $302 million from the previous month.