Electronics giant Toshiba yesterday went into the red on a consolidated basis for the first time in 23 years. The Japanese vendor said it lost ¥23.6 billion ($197 million) in the six months ended September 30, against last year’s ¥9.6 billion profit. Toshiba was another company to blame the Asian crisis for the poor results, saying it had also been hurt by plummeting memory-chip prices. Kiyoaki Shimagami said that the company’s overall PC business would post an operating profit of ¥70 billion yen ($583 million) for the year ending March 1999. However, he admitted the semiconductor and consumer electronics businesses would stay in the red. ®