I saw the same scrollers on ebay, and started to do a little research. I found some info on
wiki about the man who started
GAM, and that lead me to some additional articles. If I am correct, from the info that I could glean from the articles. These are claimed to be the first ever scrollers, and that
Wybron was a spin off of this effort.
The problem with "It was invented here", is that I have also read articles claiming that at least two other people really invented the
scroller. Believe what you may, it is obvious that the colormax is a very early
scroller and proceeds
DMX addressing. I believe, that you will find that they are 0-10vdc analog control. This was true of several of the first scrollers from a number of manufactures. The trick, is to know which of the 3 pins in the
xlr connector, does what.
If they are in fact a 0-10vdc analog controlled
scroller. Then you could
build a
DMX to analog convertor with 3 pin
XLR connectors for each of the output channels, and run mic cables from the controller to each
scroller. If this is the case, I would recommend a Northlight
dmx to analog board and
build the rest of the stuff with a project box from either Radioshack or mpja.com and a
wall wart power supply and connectors from mpja.com. The Northlight board has 8 channels, and you will need five.
You can test the scrollers to see if they are 0-10vdc analog with a 9 volt battery. The real trick is knowing which pins to connect the
voltage to, without damaging something.
Let us know how you come out.