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Thread: What is it?

  1. #1
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    Default What is it?

    Anyone have a clue what this is or what it does? It has x/y input and x/y output. There doesn't seem to be enough knobs to be just an abstract generator. Several of the boards inside are labeled sine or cosine.
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    Last edited by DZ; 04-12-2008 at 18:48.

  2. #2
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    Jeff Rowland is a well known sound engineer so I think it's a sound generator for some testing of some sound gear.
    I hired an Italian guy to do my wires. Now they look like spaghetti!

  3. #3
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    Hi Dave,

    I know this device and it's circuits well. No, this isn't Jeff Rolland, this is Rico Rolland (or Rodger Rolland, I can't remember which, but defintely RR -- that's why you see RR on the boards).

    This is an abstract generator. Probably at least 25 years old and maybe 30 years old. (The serial number 1083 might be the tenth one made in 1983.) Abstract generators designed by this guy were sold by... oh gosh, I can't remember the guy's name now, but his company was Laser Systems Development Corporation in Colorado. These were used in a lot of planetaria. LSD Co. also sold a laser graphic computer system called "Apple DACs".

    This will actually generate beautiful abstracts (as long as all of the circuits are still working). You can even put a digital image (from a system like Pangolin) into it, and then do abstracts over top of them.

    I used one of these many many years ago, and in fact, you might say that the concepts of this abstract generator served as an inspiration to the abstract generator in LD/QM32 and LD2000.

    If you bring it to the next PL meeting, we can check it out and I can show you how to use it. If any of the circuits are non-functional, I can probably show you how to fix them.

    Best regards,

    William Benner

    PS: Greg Makhov actually bumped into this guy the other day...

  4. #4
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    Hey Bill, thanks for the information! I remember seeing an "Apple DACs" system, but not a working one. It will be neat to see this little console work and I will definately bring it to the next PL meeting. I just didn't think it would be an abstract generator since I would have thought there would have been loads more knobs, but if this thing was part inspiration for the qm32 abstract generator, then I'm very eager to see it work!

  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by Pangolin View Post
    Hi Dave,

    I know this device and it's circuits well. No, this isn't Jeff Rolland, this is Rico Rolland (or Rodger Rolland, I can't remember which, but defintely RR -- that's why you see RR on the boards).
    Jeff Rowland not Rolland
    He does custom amps. I've seen few of those.

    http://www.jeffrowland.com/

    Strangely logos from DZ's box and Jeff Rowland design studio are the same.

    Also RR stands for Rowland Research and not Rico Rolland
    I hired an Italian guy to do my wires. Now they look like spaghetti!

  6. #6
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    Hmm, well whoever this RR guy is, he apparently also designed dual channel G-124 amps. Bill, any idea what kind of scan rate I can get out of these? I may just reuse them.
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