Your first Memory Lighting Console
- Thread starterderekleffew
- Start date
STEVETERRY
Well-Known Member
I am not aware of any mechanism in the LS-8 to report lamp burn-outs. The EDI SCRimmer dimmers of that era also had no current-sensing or reporting hardware. I ascribe this claim to advertising hyperbole.
I think there were only three LS-8's installed:
--ACL at the Shubert
--Denver Center for the Arts--who eventually brought a legal action against EDI because the LS-8 that shipped did not contain all the features in the spec.
--Whatever university Dirk Epperson worked at (USC?)--he did a lot of LS-8 development and support long after EDI had abandoned the product since Gordon Pearlman and Steve Carlson had left to go to Kliegl. Once they departed, EDI was unable to support the machine.
There have been some comparisons here between the LS-8 and modern lighting control systems. Any such comparisons are just patently absurd--the LS-8 on ACL bore much more resemblance to a two scene preset with memory than any modern system. About the only valid comparison is the end result--the LS-8 set dimmers to levels.
For instance, the LS-8 on ACL could not even record fade times on a cue--time had to be set manually on the C/D fader. That is why ACL was run with the A/B manual split-crossfader pair.
Other things that the LS-8 lacked:
--Patch of any kind
--Keypad access of channels--there was no "1 thru 12 at full". Each channel level or group of channels going to the same level had to be set with a single pot--that was spring loaded to stay in the center of its travel in order to able to match channel levels and then move them up or down. As a result, setting levels was a bit of a root canal.
--Real fade resolution--the level resolution was 7 bits or 127 steps.
--Cue sheet--there was none
--Printer support--there was none--you had to write down what you did
--Hand-held remote--there was none
Bear in mind that the LS-8 stored all its cues and the actual program in 8K of core memory--not 8 meg, not 8 gig--8 thousand bytes. That was not enough memory to store all the cues for ACL, so a re-load from 8" floppy disk was needed in the middle of the show. This happened in a blackout during the Paul monologue--which was a good thing, since the program stopped during a disk load, causing a quick fade to black since the analog sample-and-hold amps did not have much hold-up time.
Despite its primitive features, it was a milestone.
ST
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The Speed of Light says the second installation was at ACT in San Francisco, with F. Mitchell Dana designing lighting and Dirk Epperson programming.
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Corbettlight
Active Member
kicknargel
Well-Known Member
Funny, I was just thinking about this the other day. Maybe one of y'all can help me remember what this console was.
When I got my start in middle school, circa '90, we had a console with handles for channels, and maybe 24 or 48 submasters. No cue stack, but each submaster had a button to assign it to either the x or y crossfader and a little red/green LED that showed it's assignment. So you could record cues as subs, then alternately assign each sub to x and y. To run the show you'd push up the first two subs, with the crossfaders on x, then crossfade to y (switching from sub 1 to 2), then push down sub 1, push up sub 3, then you could crossfade from 2 to 3. I thought I was the smartest thing ever.
When I got my start in middle school, circa '90, we had a console with handles for channels, and maybe 24 or 48 submasters. No cue stack, but each submaster had a button to assign it to either the x or y crossfader and a little red/green LED that showed it's assignment. So you could record cues as subs, then alternately assign each sub to x and y. To run the show you'd push up the first two subs, with the crossfaders on x, then crossfade to y (switching from sub 1 to 2), then push down sub 1, push up sub 3, then you could crossfade from 2 to 3. I thought I was the smartest thing ever.
STEVETERRY
Well-Known Member
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You can go to United States Patent and Trademark Office and look up patent # 4,158,132
for a description. Basically the idea was to use a photo cell to record the overall illumination level as part of the cue. When you replayed it on the console, if the photocell did not read the same output you had lost a lamp (or so the theory goes). Some of you may also remember that in those analog dimmer days you had to occasionally trim your dimmers. Supposedly with this photocell information you could adjust your cue's output if the dimmers were out of trim as well.
Now I have had an EDI engineer swear he saw this actually "work". However, I've not see it myself and other than this patent and the comment on the LS8 data sheet I've not seen it. I don't believe EDI actually sold it to anyone.
STEVETERRY
Well-Known Member
I do not think that patent was ever reduced to practice. However, even if it had been, I think the old "See note 7" applies to the design mentioned in the patent.
Note 7: This won't work.
ST
Tex
Active Member
1995 - EDI Omega II with wing.
Sleek, elegant, sexy and the biggest piece of crap I've ever used. I'd be surpised if more than about 10 of them ever shipped. I've never seen another. Despite a couple of tech trips from Seattle, a complete re-build, and countless phone calls, it lasted about four years and was replaced with a Horizon system. The EDI dimmers are still there going strong.
Sleek, elegant, sexy and the biggest piece of crap I've ever used. I'd be surpised if more than about 10 of them ever shipped. I've never seen another. Despite a couple of tech trips from Seattle, a complete re-build, and countless phone calls, it lasted about four years and was replaced with a Horizon system. The EDI dimmers are still there going strong.
Just looking over this white paper from the LCA, photocells have a lot of if's and's and but's to make them work for something as simple as daylight harvesting today. I'd be more inclined to think they got this to work in a very "controlled" enviroment (otherwise why spend the time and money to get the patent?) but I agree that any pratical stage application with the level of technolgy availble then would have been next to impossible to meet the claims of the patent.
Tracy
strandcentury
Member
Maybe I'll have the last word (or maybe not!)
I rarely used consoles but I did fix them for years. My favorite (and first real memory board) was an Electro Controls MicroSet MkIII installed in 1969 at the Manitoba Theatre Center. It was built in 2 large pieces: a main desk containing all the masters and crossfaders, as well as a number pad and 7-segment cue# displays using tiny light bulbs (LEDs were still years in the future), and a preset wing with 2 sets of 100 faders. In the bottom of the preset wing there were several hundred logic chips, a 50-amp 5V power supply, and a massive 80-pound Vermont Research hard disk unit with a whopping 32K bytes of cue storage. The entire console must have weighed over a ton. You could record a 299-cue show into this board. Cue 300, if accidentally recalled, would cause all the dimmers to "do the Watusi" in the words of MTC staff. This cue was often used for parties held on stage after a show closed.
The fun officially ended in 1981 when we installed a new Kliegl Command Performance system, and scrapped the old MicroSet. It took a couple of days to break it down into small & light enough bits to get it out of the control booth.
I rarely used consoles but I did fix them for years. My favorite (and first real memory board) was an Electro Controls MicroSet MkIII installed in 1969 at the Manitoba Theatre Center. It was built in 2 large pieces: a main desk containing all the masters and crossfaders, as well as a number pad and 7-segment cue# displays using tiny light bulbs (LEDs were still years in the future), and a preset wing with 2 sets of 100 faders. In the bottom of the preset wing there were several hundred logic chips, a 50-amp 5V power supply, and a massive 80-pound Vermont Research hard disk unit with a whopping 32K bytes of cue storage. The entire console must have weighed over a ton. You could record a 299-cue show into this board. Cue 300, if accidentally recalled, would cause all the dimmers to "do the Watusi" in the words of MTC staff. This cue was often used for parties held on stage after a show closed.
The fun officially ended in 1981 when we installed a new Kliegl Command Performance system, and scrapped the old MicroSet. It took a couple of days to break it down into small & light enough bits to get it out of the control booth.
Wow--someone whose experience predates that of STEVETERRY!
pathway, you could likely enhance or edit the collaborative article Memory Lighting Control Systems, History.
pathway, you could likely enhance or edit the collaborative article Memory Lighting Control Systems, History.
Strand Palette III back in I think 1988 (89?). I don't think I have ever been that lucky since: It was at the University of Western Ontario in London, and it had just come out. The folks from Pantages Theatre (who eventually ran Phantom for 8 years) came down to spec our board. The fact that I even got to touch this thing as a student let alone run it for about 2 years has to speak to the existance of God or something . . .
