CYGN-B

[lasermaster1977]

[QUOTE=Greg;362130]How about this Laserock2 number?/QUOTE]

Very nice Greg!

[ronhip]

Havin' those Laserium flashbacks again! Great work!

Ron

How about this Laserock2 number?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bvk673tZx8w

[Greg]

Delivered as promised: Selections from the first half of Lightyears. Copyright killed The Beatles and Hendrix. I hope readers of this thread will none the less, as I do, enjoy the following video as a look through a time tunnel into the brilliantly choreographed laser shows of years past.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGVS_lK2ARc

Sorry for the lame ending on Light My Fire. I didn't want to distract from what the data was showing.

I kind of like what happens in the middle of that beach boys tune.

Note that the projector responsible for the blue channel is fucked up. I've known about this issue for a long time. Aaron at Pangolin has been helpful in offering information on how I might dig into the unit and attempt to troubleshoot, but I haven't had time to follow through with what he said yet.

The next thing I want to do with this project is develop some important functionality in the software, which is the business of recording and playing back the 8 analog input signals (X, Y, V, H, joy pots 1, 2, 3, 4.) The idea is that the user will be able to use A and B bus info in the data to determine punch in / out points. This will allow the shows to be rebuilt with the correct image generators used for the correct channels at the correct times.

I finally found that video that has few seconds of Rock Around The Clock in it, which is significant because it is the first time I have both the show data and a video of how it was supposed to be used. It is here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dDEaGtESGs

[laserist]

I think Rock around the clock had an override on one channel to display a slow digital circle as the clock. The other channels had one master gain at zero and swept spirals with image rotation for the clock hands. Light my Fire used a digital circle with AM to do a sun like image with a fire reminiscent Lumia effect. White Rabbit used 2 Axis and "Galaxy" diffraction gratings to multiply the images. I didn't consider them joystick numbers. I can't visualize a Lumia for Good Vibrations but I'm sure there was one. Glenn Thomas showed me a lick where he beam-killed all scans and brought back a small red image with joystick gain high near the end of the bridge.

There was a real temptation as you got better to add colormod, chopper, and joystick everywhere because you could. And the Audience Response would go down. When you stripped out some of the extra "because I can" stuff the Audience Response went back up. Sometimes some of that stuff creates a forest for the trees effect.

[Greg]

I think Rock around the clock had an override on one channel to display a slow digital circle as the clock. The other channels had one master gain at zero and swept spirals with image rotation for the clock hands. Light my Fire used a digital circle with AM to do a sun like image with a fire reminiscent Lumia effect. White Rabbit used 2 Axis and "Galaxy" diffraction gratings to multiply the images. I didn't consider them joystick numbers. I can't visualize a Lumia for Good Vibrations but I'm sure there was one. Glenn Thomas showed me a lick where he beam-killed all scans and brought back a small red image with joystick gain high near the end of the bridge.

There was a real temptation as you got better to add colormod, chopper, and joystick everywhere because you could. And the Audience Response would go down. When you stripped out some of the extra "because I can" stuff the Audience Response went back up. Sometimes some of that stuff creates a forest for the trees effect.

Good points. I remember preferring stars not moving, lasers not bright enough to swamp the stars, not too much use of colormod, and of course lumia is currently the big missing part of it. It would be easy to connect a fifth bela to provide lumia control signals from the data, or to discover from the data and existing documentation what lumia effects were used and when, but developing hardware do something with the signals is outside my resources and experience.

As to those gems of wisdom explaining how the clock worked, one data frame from the clock is attached and annotated. Overall, everything seen in the data confirms what Brian said. This is super interesting because it gets right to some workings of the system that I don't understand well.

[dougmcc]

Brian,

If you are referring to Charlie's star projector, we hosted that monster at Lone Mountain College (now USF) for a while when we temporarily (for 2.5 years) lost Morrison to AVI (a whole ugly story...) At least at that point, it was not controlled by data, but rather from a small aux box at the laser console. That data was never used at the Morrison Planetarium either.

Greg,

That was documentation I wrote up myself. The sheet that Brian posted was too difficult to use if you needed to bring up something quickly. My note was basically a crib sheet for my use. I don't remember if I coined those names for the dogloids or if I heard them from Scott Anderson, but they are appropriate and descriptive.

Ron

Aron Bacs turned me on to this thread. Although it's a little over-my-head technically, I'm enjoying the dialogue. One error that I'd like to correct is that Laser Images didn't lose the Morrison to AVI but rather lost it to Eye See The Light Show. And YES (to agree with Ron), from what I know it was an ugly story. I'll put it this way: In my opinion there were three companies that put out
quality laser shows in planetarium theaters back in the 1980s - Laser Images, AVI, and LFI. The gap in quality between these company's shows and others was huge. Enough said.

[Greg]

Aron Bacs turned me on to this thread. Although it's a little over-my-head technically, I'm enjoying the dialogue. One error that I'd like to correct is that Laser Images didn't lose the Morrison to AVI but rather lost it to Eye See The Light Show. And YES (to agree with Ron), from what I know it was an ugly story. I'll put it this way: In my opinion there were three companies that put out
quality laser shows in planetarium theaters back in the 1980s - Laser Images, AVI, and LFI. The gap in quality between these company's shows and others was huge. Enough said.

Welcome to the thread! Perhaps when you feel inclined, you'll tell us a tale or two of your experiences of a time when lasers were much more expensive and dangerous. Ahh, but the true yellow in the lumia was worth it.

[ronhip]

dougmcc,

My apologies, you are correct, Morrison was lost to "Eye See The Light Show" (or whatever they called the San Francisco version of themselves back then...). They were also at De Anza College 45 minutes south of Morrison, and I believe at that venue it was Floyd Rollefstadt (sp?) who inserted into his show a really great LIVE drum solo complete with triggered strobe lights. I have no comments about the quality of the lasers (unless you PM me...). I believe that De Anza still has the Eye See The Light laser synthesizer they use to present shows!

Ron

PS. dougmcc Do I know you from the industry somewhere (sometime)?

Aron Bacs turned me on to this thread. Although it's a little over-my-head technically, I'm enjoying the dialogue. One error that I'd like to correct is that Laser Images didn't lose the Morrison to AVI but rather lost it to Eye See The Light Show. And YES (to agree with Ron), from what I know it was an ugly story. I'll put it this way: In my opinion there were three companies that put out
quality laser shows in planetarium theaters back in the 1980s - Laser Images, AVI, and LFI. The gap in quality between these company's shows and others was huge. Enough said.

[laserist]

I think I discussed Laserium's dimple tube with dougmcc way back when...

[dougmcc]

dougmcc,

My apologies, you are correct, Morrison was lost to "Eye See The Light Show" (or whatever they called the San Francisco version of themselves back then...). They were also at De Anza College 45 minutes south of Morrison, and I believe at that venue it was Floyd Rollefstadt (sp?) who inserted into his show a really great LIVE drum solo complete with triggered strobe lights. I have no comments about the quality of the lasers (unless you PM me...). I believe that De Anza still has the Eye See The Light laser synthesizer they use to present shows!

Ron

PS. dougmcc Do I know you from the industry somewhere (sometime)?

Hi Ron, I'm Doug McCullough. Although Laser Images and AVI were fierce competitors, I had great respect for Laserium shows (the original Laserium, Laserock, Starship, Light Years, and Moonrock were among my favorites) and members of the Laser Images team including you. I particularly remember an enjoyable conversation with you at an ILDA "open house" event that we hosted at AVI back in the early '90s.