Your first Memory Lighting Console

I'm always amazed at what people will say the old LS8 did or did not do. So for your enjoyment and setting the record straight, I've attached the ORIGINAL data sheet for the EDI LS8 console. What I find amazing is how little "modern" consoles have changed in terms of features and how you do them.

That was a cool read. My memory of the Skirpan vs. EDI lawsuit is all based on hear-say of 30 years ago and whatever was in the "trade journal" - which would have been Theater Crafts. Not much to go on, though I thought the Light Pen technology had been involved, not the case according to the LD-8 brochure. And it's too late to ask Steve Skirpan, who I'm told passed away a few months back.

Things haven't changed in memory consoles ?. Think about that the next time you pull out your iPhone to re-focus a Focus Pallete on an Ion.

SB
 
F.Y.I.: the Autocue originally used a boot loader entered from the PDP-8 switch register, which enabled the ASR-33 paper tape reader. This was the backup scenario when the Sykes digital cassette tape malfunctioned. These were subsequently replaced with 8-inch floppy drives. If memory serves, these were DSD 440's.
 
Did it realy have a lightpen? What I know is that the LS-8 used a PDP-8A and it looks like they used a text terminal as display. I did not find a lot in the net about it. Is there a manual online anywhere in the net or some description and may be a description of how the panel and the dimmer control (analog?) is arranged around the PDP-8. This is all very interesting for me as it is one of the the first memory based consoles and one build around a standard computer.

Do the system disks exist these days? What a fun would it be to see it run :)

The LS-8 did not use a lightpen--that was the Skirpan Autocue. The LS-8 used a DEC VT-8E bus (not serial) video terminal for display.

The LS-8 is in the non-visible storage collection of the Computer History Museum in Mountain View CA. We are trying to get it relocated to a site where it can be viewed and studied by entertainment industry people who want to see it.

ST
 
Does Horizon count as a memory console? If so, then that.

Other than that, a 1996 ETC Express 24/48.
 
The original Expression 1 (around 2006), and yeah, it was beige and sky blue or something like that. I think I learned how to use it with nothing but the HELP key. Except for the lack of softkeys, I loved it. It didn't have any of those annoying dedicated channel faders like the express series had, just had like 48 subs. I can turn a sub into a channel fader, but it doesn't go the other way. So you can imagine how annoyed I am by the 72/144, which for all it's gigantic bulk only has...what...12? programmable subs?
 
The original Expression 1 (around 2006), and yeah, it was beige and sky blue or something like that. I think I learned how to use it with nothing but the HELP key. Except for the lack of softkeys, I loved it. It didn't have any of those annoying dedicated channel faders like the express series had, just had like 48 subs. I can turn a sub into a channel fader, but it doesn't go the other way. So you can imagine how annoyed I am by the 72/144, which for all it's gigantic bulk only has...what...12? programmable subs?

To be fair, I think all of the channel faders can be assigned to subs. (or at least half of them can. )
 
My first was a terrible memory board made by Electro Control, 1977. It simply was a two scene board that would record the levels for each cue. You still ran a split fader and fade speeds were all manual. I was given a five minute lesson on how to record cues. What I wasn't given was a lesson on how to get out of a memory fail and to run manually. I learned that opening night after the third cue. It was a two scene board with one set of faders. You set a scene, brought it up on the X fader, pushed a sequencer button then you could set the scene for Y. Really basic but not fun on the fly at nineteen. I had exactly one show on a regular two scene board, before that it was auto transformer dimmers.
 
Since no one else mentioned it.

1974 - Kliegl Q-File. ( University of Wisconsin Madison)

Not a computer system, but a memory system. Used lots of TTL logic boards ( two equipment racks in fact) to make the thing work. I did not do much with it ( I was the TD - not a lighting designer) but I enjoyed playing with it as much as I was able to.


If we want to really go back - would we describe a platen board as a memory console which stored it's levels mechanically? If so it was a strand product in about 1972. Don't remember the model.
 
The original Expression 1 (around 2006), and yeah, it was beige and sky blue or something like that. I think I learned how to use it with nothing but the HELP key. Except for the lack of softkeys, I loved it. It didn't have any of those annoying dedicated channel faders like the express series had, just had like 48 subs. I can turn a sub into a channel fader, but it doesn't go the other way. So you can imagine how annoyed I am by the 72/144, which for all it's gigantic bulk only has...what...12? programmable subs?

To be fair, I think all of the channel faders can be assigned to subs. (or at least half of them can. )

Just want to clarify for everyone out there that the entire Express line has 24 submaster faders and each fader has 10 pages for a total of 240 subs. On the 24/48 you have to choose single scene w/subs meaning you only get 24 channel faders in this setting. All of the other Expresses have 24 dedicated faders and therefore don't have any effect on the channel faders.
Now that that is clarified, I have to agree with calkew5 that submaster are far better than channel faders because you can just assign one channel to the sub if that's what you want, but you can't assign more than one channel to a channel fader...

-Tim
 
Not sure the very first board I used that had memories as it was only for a single run at a local theatre, but I do remember the second. The second was the Strand GSX, made in the early 90's and I used it in 2006 for the first time.
 
2008, ETC, Congo Jr. Although the one I used at my church might have had memory, i dont recall. Although it might have been 4 years earlier with some sort of Leviton garbage.
 
Things haven't changed in memory consoles ?. Think about that the next time you pull out your iPhone to re-focus a Focus Pallete on an Ion.

SB
And what are you entering on that iPhone? channels @ level, enter. Lableing a focus pallete ( a stored memory)and getting feedback on lamp burn outs?, RELEASE? LS8 did all of those things in the 70's. We are just using COTS (comerical off the shelf) gear for what used to be dedicated hardware for your HHR and designers remote.
 
2005 - Strand - MX 48
Although, this is still what we use for small assemblies etc at school, so I've never actually investigated the memory side of it - we only use preset mode :oops:
 
And what are you entering on that iPhone? channels @ level, enter. Lableing a focus pallete ( a stored memory)and getting feedback on lamp burn outs?, RELEASE? LS8 did all of those things in the 70's. We are just using COTS (comerical off the shelf) gear for what used to be dedicated hardware for your HHR and designers remote.

When was the last time you pulled an LS8 out of your belt pouch ?, took a call from the S.O. to remember to bring home.... ?, used the LS8 on a mountain bike ride and logged a GPS route for posting on your favorite bike forum ?, played games ?.

And mostly didn't worry about it crashing (unless YOU crashed !). I'm just reading the updated Pilbrow book and recall Tharon Musser talking about the horror stories of when the LS8 crashed as well as many designer lamenting the poor reliability of early memory consoles in general. Knocking on wood, but I haven't had a console crash to that extent ever.

So yeah, it's all just more memory.

In all seriousness, I just wrote a whole series of Color and Beam Palettes with 5 Studio Spots on my new ETC Ion, using 2 LCD touchscreens. It was SO simple and Yes, it's all just stored data, but we've made huge leaps in user interface and programming is so much simpler now (as it got more complicated at the same time (grin)).

SB
 
...and getting feedback on lamp burn outs?, RELEASE? LS8 did all of those things in the 70's. ...

From the LS-8 brochure cited:
IN ADDITION TO THESE FEATURES, THE L. S. - 8 IS THE ONLY SYSTEM THAT CAN DETECT AND INFORM THE OPERATOR THAT A LAMP HAS BURNED OUT.

I'm curious as to how this was accomplished, as I thought the outputs were simple analog. Dimmer Load Monitoring would not come into widespread use until much, much later; and even today is seldom implemented.

Was this a feature only available in conjunction with certain EDI dimmers? How many LS-8's were actually installed with EDI dimmers, or installed at all for that matter?
 
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In 1979 I had a UK built Strand Century Compact 200, (MMS guts in a box on wheels). Story was it ran some part of the '76 Olympics in Montreal, then somehow this theatre in Michigan bought it.

The display was a bunch of LEDs, one per channel. No screen. If the channel was on at any reading, the LED was on. Enter the channel on a keypad and you got the analog meter needle swinging up to show the level.

"COMPACT 200 controls superbly up to 80 dimmer channels... ferrite core memory... The memory capacity for 80 channels is just under 200 cues".

:cool:
 

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