Century C-Card

[Scenemaster60]

A friend of mine was talking about the console that he used as an undergraduate. It was called the C-Card and used plastic template "cards" with little slider switches on them. Apparently there were two card readers and you could theoretically do infinite presetting if you had enough cards OR someone resetting the cards during the show.

Does anyone know when this board was produced? Pictures?

 

[derekleffew]

Guessing produced 1965-69. This Century brochure is not dated.

Generically known as "platen preset". I'm quite familiar with those from Century competitor Ward Leonard. Their "cards" were ~ 6"h x 20"w x 1/2"d, and held 30 linear potentiometers. Our system had 60 dimmers, thus two per, and was a five scene preset. We did not not swap cards for a number of reasons. The cards were expensive and we only had a couple of spares. Alignment was tricky, and once removed and re-inserted, it took a lot of jiggling to get everything to make contact. No method was ever devised as to how to store or handle the platens outside the rack. One couldn't just stack or pile them on the floor. Each little pot had a knob that screwed down to prevent movement with a separate indicator pointer. 0 to 10 in quarter-point increments, though always a rough approximation.

About 1982 I toured Univ. of Akron's EJ Thomas Hall, which had just installed Ohio's first Light Palette. Their head electrician told me they definitely changed and reset cards with Tom Skelton designing for the Ohio Ballet. I don't recall if theirs was Century or Ward Leonard.

Some other "hare-brained" schemes for achieving "infinite preset" capability before computers, from Century:

 

[Scenemaster60]

Derek, you never cease to amaze me with your depth of knowledge and experience with obscure technologies!

 

[ptero]

A friend of mine was talking about the console that he used as an undergraduate. It was called the C-Card and used plastic template "cards" with little slider switches on them. Apparently there were two card readers and you could theoretically do infinite presetting if you had enough cards OR someone resetting the cards during the show.

Does anyone know when this board was produced? Pictures?

Imagine removing the cover plate of submasters w/the handle and the slider contacts attached under. The card is the plate w/'sub' handles and the corresponding contact sliders underneath. This leaves behind permanently wired into the console(loosely stated!) the windings that the sliders... Slide along. That's how these worked. Each card was somewhere between 15 and 20 sliders.? It ran 38 dimmers plus house on it's own permanent slider.

There were multiple cards or plates so you had a pile of them to swap into place. It was a two scene preset and you faded between two of these sets of cards. Fade to the B side and change the A card, then fade to the A side. To change a card you'd release a gear lever that would release pressure pressing tge sliders into the windings and free the card for handling. Put another in and shift to lever to the tight side engaging into place so it would function. Ka-chunk, swap, K-chunk. Half the time it was easier to reset the preset card in place and not bother to physically swap them. IIRC, it was fine to move channels hot while 'up'.

We had one, sadly no pictures. Sure was a huge steel beast. It was operating a rack of 39 6Kw century dimmers through a classic century patch panel. Both the rack and the 195 circuit panel live to this day. Of course driven by a modern console. Those dimmers are tanks. Very reliable w/a few aging issues. Mainly just keep them clean.

The Strand Archive lists the C Card as being introduced in 1964. I don't think it was made for long. Edkotrons hit at the same time plus they went to the small dial preset wings like the ten scene (x 50 dimmers) preset I experienced in school. That one was an Izenour Thyratron Tube system running 2.5kw and 5.0Kw tube dimmers - 2 tubes each. That was 500 little dials backlit w/fluorescent tubes. Eyes! Crew set the dials while an op did the crossfading between the ten presets running the show. But I digress!

No luck googling for images of the C Card. DIA in Detroit, MI also had one that was in service into the 80's. They grabbed ours for parts. We block and tackled it down 25' to get it outta there.

More than ya wanna know? Unloading the memories...

 

[ptero]

Derek yep! What they term the C-1 board is the ten scene control we had in school. That's it. Thanks!!!

 

[derekleffew]

Derek, you never cease to amaze me with your depth of knowledge and experience with obscure technologies!

Thank you. I think that's the nicest way I've ever heard of saying I'm old and obsolete.

@ptero , it sounds as though the Century C-Card was much better than the Ward Leonard equivalent, but still in hindsight, neither was very good.

 

[SteveB]

Kliegl had a version as well, possibly a one-off installed at the theater at Sarah Lawrence college.

The cards were defunct when I used the system in mid-70's (that's 1970's), but the desk had a 2 scene as well so was partly functional.

 

[derekleffew]

Thanks Steve--I meant to ask if anyone had seen similar by Kliegl Bros. I don't recall seeing any in their literature, but suspected they must have jumped on board at some point.

 

[microstar]

Here are some pictures of what I remember as being called a "pallet" preset console at my undergrad school circa 1970. It was apparently a "custom-made" console by an engineering company in Dallas using Ward Leonard parts. The "pallets" or trays contained slider pots that had threaded shafts so the slide knobs could be tightened down to prevent movement when the pallets were moved around. The pallets must have been pretty expensive as I think there were only four of them supplied with the console. There were two scenes of conventional preset sliders and two scenes with pallets. There was a Rual Industries slider patch and about 30 Ward Leonard 6KW dimmers backstage (actually, against the SL proscenium). The console worked OK but the pallet pots were so crude that we didn't use them much. Notice the ancient carbon mic "operator's headset" on the wall at left for the com system! Those were the days.

 

[derekleffew]

Yep, definitely Ward Leonard. What you call pallets I call platens. For a tie-breaker, ask your wife.

 

[microstar]

No help at all..... she says they are "preset panels"!

 

[JChenault]

Thanks Steve--I meant to ask if anyone had seen similar by Kliegl Bros. I don't recall seeing any in their literature, but suspected they must have jumped on board at some point.

I believe Kliegl did have a version at one point ( I remember discussing it with Joel Rubin in the 70's).
They had a rods on the palette that could be adjusted. These pushed on a potentiometer / slider in the case.

 

[venuetech]

I believe Kliegl did have a version at one point ( I remember discussing it with Joel Rubin in the 70's).
They had a rods on the palette that could be adjusted. These pushed on a potentiometer / slider in the case.

I worked with one of those. Think the install was early 70s

 

[derekleffew]

Yep, definitely Ward Leonard. What you call pallets I call platens.

Credit where credit is due...

Scott, you are correct (or rather, you agree with the manufacturer). I stumbled across the sales brochure in the thread https://www.controlbooth.com/threads/solitrol-brochure.38350/ and on page 10 it says

"700"--Features infinite presetting, pallet cue storage for any quantity of control channels or dimmers.

However, I'm positive at least one of my old dusty, textbooks calls them platens. Just not motivated enough to go searching to prove insignificant minutiae.