An electronic catalog system, which may be implemented as a web site or another type of interactive system, presents context-sensitive information to customers reflective of their prior orders. The ACS circuit performs a path decision based on the path metric values and the reproduced signal supplied to the Viterbi detector at the time instant that is a specified number of channel clocks earlier during the path selection. The operation of the switching elements is controlled to output in a bipolar pulsed mode at a predetermined frequency to a pair of electrodes which come into contact with a plasma. Each decoder generates an enable signal upon receiving of its associated address signal. The outer-shape expansion portion expands the outer shape of the cord.