I’ve been thinking of how I’d design a console since the golden age of Laserium. As Laserium matured the MARK VI console experienced a number of hacks, controls added here and there until the somewhat clean original design had a lot of exceptions. Learning those exceptions became kind of daunting!
I wanted to get back to a clean minimum of 4 channel design, and eventually I realized that image rotation (4x4QMM), spirals (2x2QMM), and audio mod (2x2QMM) are image processing steps that can be thought of as separate from the image generation functions. Color mod and chopper maybe a part of image generation, but having different dynamic color mod for 4 different images would probably require presets. Still color mod enables and gain could be played live as could a bit of FM for one or all of the images.
Joystick is easy, it gets summed in right before the output.
I finally decided that the way to go was without all the hardwired pots and latching switches because they ultimately make it really hard to go from one setup to another. Still I wanted the core functionality to be dedicated to controls in specific places. (AND I want on the fly overrides.) If I want to turn down the gain on the “red” channel (2x2QMM)… (I know, but sue me.) I wanted that scanner’s gain to always be in the same place. Same for master gain and symmetry. Same for Joystick mode and enables. Same for fixed and variable rotation modes, enables, and sources.
You may have noticed that this doesn’t really talk about imagery, just the processing of that imagery. Sure you can hook up a bank of quadrature oscillators for old times’ sake, The Radiator could go to another input. The number of multiplexed inputs per output channel is whatever you want. The user interface to configure the core image processing functions will involve illuminated “radio” buttons so the Laserist will know at a glance how it’s configured.
Still, just a concept…
"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