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Thread: CYGN-B

  1. #381
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    If I remember correctly (from from 23 years ago...) middle was "signal from tape" and up was "I want the signal from what I want the signal from, damnit!" and down was not connected... Brian?

    Ron

    Quote Originally Posted by Greg View Post
    You're right about the upside down bit. I should have thought to test for that.

    Regarding the image override levers, I think it was up is CYGN-B, mid is data, and down is CYGN-A. So when say red is up or down, does that mean offsets and gains from the data for red are ignored too?

  2. #382
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    There were 3 sets of 4 leverlite switches. The 4 on the left were beam kills. Up killed. Middle followed the tape, and down forced the beam on. The top 4 on the right were joystick overrides. Up killed the joystick signal, middle let the signal through, and down let the joystick signal through but killed the image signal. The 4 lower right selected between the hybrid (lower) card cage signal (All the stuff controlled by the data track) and the upper card cage. Up was the hybrid card cage stuff. Middle summed the two signals. Down was the upper card cage only. The 3 on the far right were originally motor enables (which was stupid) and were nothing on my machine in 2013. There were 2 more that involved color mod and chopper, that may have been left over from the digital recording system that Laser Images dropped a ton of money on and never made it into the field.

    The upper card cage had the chopper, color mod, joystick, cycloid rotator, motor driver, and multiplier boards. Later the clipper and AO driver was added. The signals from the upper cage lower cage leverlite switches was summed at the cycloid rotator board and then to the multiplier board before the scan amps.

    I understand the confusion about CYGN-A and B. Those signals were popular. In the upper cage the CYGN-B signals were summed together and sent through a master gain pot and summed to the CYGN-A master gain pot. The CYGN-B signal (before its master gain) went to the spiral switch. It also went to the fixed cycloid select switch with and without the danube rotation signal.

    I should point out that the fixed rotation in the upper cage was out of phase relative to the lower cage - so when the leverlites were in the center (yellow) and the hybrid cage gain was ramped up with variable cycloids selected one image got smaller, one larger, and the other two would collapse to lines at 45 & -45 degrees.

    Originally the projector wiring was pretty straight forward, and there was real training. Eventually the training was do it this way. When I was at the Smithsonian I set a goal to figure out everything I didn't know about the 6B. That's why I know where the signals from the switches go, or that there's a dual op-amp on the motor driver that - if blown - will kill the imagery, but the joystick signals will still get to the scanners.
    Last edited by laserist; 12-10-2021 at 04:56.
    "There are painters who transform the sun into a yellow spot, but there are others who, with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun." Pablo Picasso

  3. #383
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    As time went by there were mods. The clipper (with non-feedback scanners) wasn't my favorite effect, and was something that could be left on accidentally that resulted in depressing surge of blood pressure when discovered later in the show. They did something to variable image rotation where you could use the cycloid generators as rotation signals - another ticking time bomb. It got harder to learn how to run the early shows well, and easier to lean on cartoons and then came ADAT and that was all she wrote. Somebody may do a real show with the 6B that I refurbished in 2013, but Danny was doing ADAT shows in Van Nuys when I returned the projector, and never hooked it up. There's a whole bunch of reasons that people don't do live shows anymore, and one of them is, "It's hard..."
    Last edited by laserist; 12-10-2021 at 02:45.
    "There are painters who transform the sun into a yellow spot, but there are others who, with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun." Pablo Picasso

  4. #384
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    Sep 2014
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    Quote Originally Posted by laserist View Post
    laserist
    There were 3 sets of 4 leverlite switches. The 4 on the left were beam kills. Up killed. Middle followed the tape, and down forced the beam on. The top 4 on the right were joystick overrides. Up killed the joystick signal, middle let the signal through, and down let the joystick signal through but killed the image signal. The 4 lower right selected between the hybrid (lower) card cage signal (All the stuff controlled by the data track) and the upper card cage. Up was the hybrid card cage stuff. Middle summed the two signals. Down was the upper card cage only. The 3 on the far right were originally motor enables (which was stupid) and were nothing on my machine in 2013. There were 2 more that involved color mod and chopper, that may have been left over from the digital recording system that Laser Images dropped a ton of money on and never made it into the field.

    The upper card cage had the chopper, color mod, joystick, cycloid rotator, motor driver, and multiplier boards. Later the clipper and AO driver was added. The signals from the upper cage lower cage leverlite switches was summed at the cycloid rotator board and then to the multiplier board before the scan amps.

    I understand the confusion about CYGN-A and B. Those signals were popular. In the upper cage the CYGN-B signals were summed together and sent through a master gain pot and summed to the CYGN-A master gain pot. The CYGN-B signal (before its master gain) went to the spiral switch. It also went to the fixed cycloid select switch with and without the danube rotation signal.

    I should point out that the fixed rotation in the upper cage was out of phase relative to the lower cage - so when the leverlites were in the center (yellow) and the hybrid cage gain was ramped up with variable cycloids selected one image got smaller, one larger, and the other two would collapse to lines at 45 & -45 degrees.

    Originally the projector wiring was pretty straight forward, and there was real training. Eventually the training was do it this way. When I was at the Smithsonian I set a goal to figure out everything I didn't know about the 6B. That's why I know where the signals from the switches go, or that there's a dual op-amp on the motor driver that - if blown - will kill the imagery, but the joystick signals will still get to the scanners.

    As time went by there were mods. The clipper (with non-feedback scanners) wasn't my favorite effect, and was something that could be left on accidentally that resulted in depressing surge of blood pressure when discovered later in the show. They did something to variable image rotation where you could use the cycloid generators as rotation signals - another ticking time bomb. It got harder to learn how to run the early shows well, and easier to lean on cartoons and then came ADAT and that was all she wrote. Somebody may do a real show with the 6B that I refurbished in 2013, but Danny was doing ADAT shows in Van Nuys when I returned the projector, and never hooked it up. There's a whole bunch of reasons that people don't do live shows anymore, and one of them is, "It's hard..."

    What phenomenal insight!!! I love this thread so much and so enthralled that Greg is making such progress in reconstructing a piece of the past and that laserist and Ron are no able to share their knowledgebase of the Laserium magic.

    Many thanks guys.
    ________________________________
    Everything depends on everything else

  5. #385
    Join Date
    Mar 2010
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    Earlier post of Turn Me On 351 inspection inverted everything.

    Corrected here:
    turn me on
    https://youtu.be/jzm-bmgSPuQ


    and double life
    https://youtu.be/fkQeG4tbIYc


    I see the sixteen static offset patterns being generated in the DOGN code, but I don't see where in the 351 four bits of information for this is. Something to do with the following?


    from 351 data frame:
    Byte 20 bit 4 STATIC/DYNAMIC SELECT
    Byte 15 bit 4 DYNAMIC/DOGLOID SELECT
    Byte 19 bit 6 OFFSET BIT 0
    Byte 19 bit 7 OFFSET BIT 0
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails DoubleLife_control_tracks.jpg  


  6. #386
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    Sep 2014
    Location
    Colorado USA
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    Quote Originally Posted by Greg View Post
    Earlier post of Turn Me On 351 inspection inverted everything.

    Corrected here:
    turn me on
    https://youtu.be/jzm-bmgSPuQ


    and double life
    https://youtu.be/fkQeG4tbIYc


    I see the sixteen static offset patterns being generated in the DOGN code, but I don't see where in the 351 four bits of information for this is. Something to do with the following?


    from 351 data frame:
    Byte 20 bit 4 STATIC/DYNAMIC SELECT
    Byte 15 bit 4 DYNAMIC/DOGLOID SELECT
    Byte 19 bit 6 OFFSET BIT 0
    Byte 19 bit 7 OFFSET BIT 0
    This is stupendous!!!!!!!! CONGRATS!

    It's easy to see the where the laserist's live, visual augmentation is intended.
    ________________________________
    Everything depends on everything else

  7. #387
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    There were 3 switches on the remote panel. Two more selects and one y axis invert.
    "There are painters who transform the sun into a yellow spot, but there are others who, with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun." Pablo Picasso

  8. #388
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    Mar 2010
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    I see 351 frame byte 17 bit 7 is spiral reset enable. Is this the bit that would reset the ramp? Or did this bit enable resetting of the ramp, in which case where did the ramp reset signal come from?

  9. #389
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    It's the reset...
    "There are painters who transform the sun into a yellow spot, but there are others who, with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun." Pablo Picasso

  10. #390
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    Mar 2010
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    It is to celebrate that much of the data from Laserock2 has survived. Sadly there's a that's all she wrote situation following the beginning of Red, which means no School, and no Zeppelin. I've looked ahead through what there is, and the number Cars, though not my favourite number in the show, is making entertainingly fancy use of the offsets and gains, so that's one to look forward to when I get the static offsets into the visualization.

    Unimportant, I expect, but I have noticed the word zodiac pop up a couple of times in the documentation. For example, a line of Digital Offset Generator code has the comment: zodiac image select.

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