Also, does it "go"
button or does it use the sliding faders thing like the Status?
Oh, also how many channels does the Prestige control I wonder?
Mike
I think it was 100 & 200 channels for the Prestige 1000/2000, or some such, while the 3000 had more. I distinctly remember that the NBC Ave. M Brooklyn TV studios had an early C-Tran Prestige 3000, as it was the only
console at the time that could handle 800 channels, as they required that the
channel /
dimmer patch be set as 1:1 and they had 800 dimmers in this HUGE studio complex.
The Prestige consoles were designed by David Cunningham, the creator of the original
Light Palette operating system (which Prestige used) as well as the
Colortran ENR dimmers, the
ETC Sensor dimmers and the Source 4
ellipsoidal.
All the Prestige consoles had the same
layout, very much
Express 125/250 like (which came some 8 years later) - 24 subs to the left, 2 playback
fader pairs with Go buttons, a keypad for data entry, but had a wheel for
level/rate override/control (not a trackpad). They were
Tracking consoles, BTW. I believe the 1000 & 2000 were single
monitor, while the 3000 had dual monitors, all CGA not
VGA
They were also the first
console to have Softkeys, where the key function changed depending on what
screen you were in. No macros though.
About the fastest
console to program on I have yet to use, with a great
button design and ergonomic feel, good
layout, and the terrific LP OS.
They were purchased in large numbers by rental shops, who shortly after discovered that the
console wasn't
road worthy, as assorted cards and ribbon cables would work loose during transport.
The
RFU was a membrane faced
hand held
unit that had poor tactile feel but was waterproof and indestructible.
An purchasable option (possibly included with the 3000) was a
Designers Remote that was essentially a stand alone IBM PC AT computer, 512k of RAM, no hard drive, a single 3.5" floppy to which one could attach a
monitor, keyboard and a graphics tablet and a printer port. The tablet had a permanent
overlay that mimicked the
console keypad and had room for a programmable area for an 8.5x11 inch
magic sheet or
light plot. It was the absolutely coolest toy and if you took the time to program it, was a very fast design tool. I distinctly remember a visiting Romanian LD for a dance company, who spoke no English, using the tablet to
cue his entire show off a mini
plot that was color coded. Talk about the right tool for the moment !.
I used the
Designers Remote as my desktop computer for many years, one floppy had a program called PC Write on which I did all my word processing. Another single floppy program was called
ALD, also known as Assistant
Lighting Designer, which went on to become ALD-Pro, then Lightwright 1, then 2, then 3, and now 4. I would pop in the program disk, runt he software, ask to Save, swap to a data disk, Save, then go back to the program disk. Scary to think about it.
All Prestiges had a reputation for being very buggy, which early models were, most of the OS bugs eventually got worked out and I liked the 2 that we had, having about the same number of OS quirks and bugs that my
Express consoles have. Other users reported more serious issues that I never was fortunate to have experienced.
Steve Short at Litetol is the worldwide authority on parts and information, as he inherited a truck full of C-Tran consoles when NSI moved C-Tran out of California to Oregon, thus Steve would be the person to contact for help.
They would make great door stops, but I would absolutely never rely on one today for professional use.
Steve B.
