(FORTUNE Magazine) – SUPERPHONE Superman isn't the only tough guy found in phone booths these days. The new RoboPhone looks mild-mannered, but it can foil vandals. Its casing is strengthened with more than ten pounds of extra steel. And a reinforced keypad on the phone makes it much harder for miscreants to punch through with a sharp instrument and rip off the coins that have collected in the cashbox. Manufactured by Intellicall of Dallas, the Suped-up phones are being tested in New York City by U.S. Communications, an operator of private pay phones in 30 states. Says CEO George Coloney: ''We don't know of another manufacturer who's even thinking about this kind of phone, and we're happy with how it's holding up.'' After testing is completed later this year, the RoboPhone will likely sell for around $1,300, $200 more than a typical pay phone.

SITTING HEALTHY After years of telling you to sit up straight, would your mother cringe if she saw how you slouched in your office all day? Not if you were sitting in the Obus Forme chair from Global Industries. For over ten years chiropractors have been recommending the Obus Forme portable back brace to patients with lower back pain. The brace holds muscles and the spine at rest for better support. Now Global has incorporated it into a chair. The back-friendly seat has an adjustable rest that contours the spine, and a rounded edge at the front of the seat to promote better circulation in the legs. The combination of proper posture and improved circulation means less fatigue and increased productivity for harried executives, says Global. Since January the company has sold 4,000 of the chairs, which come in eight styles selling from $575 to $815.

SWEET TREATS Is there room for yet another designer cookie? Seems so. Specializing in mail order and corporate gifts, Christie Cookies of Nashville sells $2 million a year of moist, chewy cookies in 12 varieties such as oatmeal raisin and chunky white chocolate with macadamia nuts. Proprietor Christie Hauck is getting ready to go big time. He has six stores in Nashville and Atlanta; in October, Wendy's will start selling the cookies in some of its Tennessee fast-food outlets; and after the Christmas rush Hauck will ship frozen dough to supermarket bakeries and deli shops nationwide. The cookies go for $6.99 a pound, or about 60 cents each.

INTERACTIVE DESIGN SOFTWARE All too often an engineer working on a new product doesn't know exactly what the designer had in mind. Result: glitches that can delay introduction. Mentor Graphics of Oregon offers a solution with its Concurrent Design Environment (CDE) software. All the design criteria are in the computer the engineer uses, and the software sends a signal if the engineer goes out of bounds. Say a designer specifies that a high-definition television picture has to run at a certain speed to keep from flickering, and that the components used in the set must come in at a particular size and cost. An engineer working on the product will be shown immediately on his computer screen if a part he is considering fails to meet those specifications. Says Electronic Engineering Times: ''Mentor is setting a new standard for design tools and interactive environments.'' The CDE software, available at year-end, will first run on Hewlett-Packard/Apol lo workstations and later on Sun machines. Cost: $3,000.