I am just noticing this thread again and wow - Some great info!
Some time ago (before SELEM 2017 even) I had started my own little wiki project of documenting everything I could find and remember. Then figured I would fill in more parts as time went on. I've had the domain over 20 years, none of it is going anywhere (stable place to contribute information.)
It's online at http://lasershowwiki.757.org
I have open registration turned off but I should make a system to allow laser geeks to register and add content.
Would anyone be willing to help mind map this stuff?
At the next SELEM I am hoping to rent a trailer to bring more stuff to event. If this happens I will bring a rack that has lots of tape machines. I have black ADATs + HD24, and on the video side IE DV decoder + commercial SVHS, 3/4" UMatic and Super Beta decks. I have the hardware to do analog video to SDI and HDSDI and hardware H264 capture systems, so if there is old material it could be dumped off to digital for those that want to use it to archive things.
I've mentioned it to DK and Swamidog ... but I can't even think where to start. Laser shows ... the documentary!
I remember Ram I met him twice in NYC once in the mid eighties when he was working on the crew from the UK that installed a laser projector for the Broadway bomb Carrie it lasted a day or two and closed. This was the start of my interest in Laser shows also I met him again when we were studying with Norman Ballard for our NYC Class B laser licenses in the 90s. I would love to get his info and contact him.
Michael
1988 Broadway Production[edit]
The show transferred to Broadway at an expense of $8 million (at the time an exorbitant amount). Hateley (who ultimately won a Theatre World Award) and other members of the UK cast remained with the show, but Cook was replaced by Betty Buckley (who had played the teacher Miss Collins in the 1976 film version).
The show started previews on April 28, 1988, at the Virginia Theatre. After the final song, boos were heard mixed in with applause. Ken Mandelbaum is quoted by Wollman, MacDermot, and Trask: "Ken Mandelbaum writes of an audience divided during early previews, the curtain calls of which were greeted with a raucous mix of cheers and boos.[5] However, in an instant, when Linzi Hateley and Betty Buckley rose to take their bows, the entire theatre turned to a standing ovation. According to the New York Times, "The show had received standing ovations at some previews, as well as on opening night..."[6] The show officially opened on May 12, 1988. Hampered by scathing reviews, and despite the fact that the theatre was sold out every night,[1] the financial backers pulled their money out of the show, and it closed on May 15 after only 16 previews and 5 performances, guaranteeing its place in theatre history as one of the most expensive disasters of all time. According to The New York Times, the "more-than-$7 million show...was the most expensive quick flop in Broadway history."[6]
Last edited by mmuhler; 02-13-2018 at 10:12.
I just saw this old post by Photonbeam. The Apple IIe system he is referring to was my Laser Master system that started out in 1979 with a wire-wrap DAC card made by my brother and a Motorola EE. Photonbeam used a 2nd generation of this first prototype board, followed by a 3rd generation version consisting of only two chips, a quad opamp and dual DAC chip, all of which I referred to as Apple DAC boards. I sold a number of these systems, two of them to long time members of this forum, three to Dallas/Ft. Worth planetariums, three of which ultimately became the LaserMaster 2.0 system (one is mine) consisting of 4 65C02 co-processor boards, plus RAMDrives and a TimeMaster clock card in an Apple IIe, I've mentioned on this forum in other posts.
I gave a 3rd generation Apple DAC board, software, images and an updated DAC driver for RGB blanking to icecruncher, on this forum. I think he's planning on demonstrating this single-card system on his IIgs at SELEM 13 in a few weeks.
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Everything depends on everything else
You can ad Phoenix also to the list now. Mr brenner said that they would continue to support the customers and keep it alive but of course it it was obvious that phoenix was bought to play out the competition. Pangolin , the company that "helps" the lasercommunity yeah right....
Interested in 6-12W RGB projectors with low divergence? Contact me by PM!
if im not mistaken the original version of Merlin was on apple iie (and i think may have used apple dac aswell)
i do have the source code still around but non of the hardware
but i do have both the isa and pci version of the dac for msdos version of Merlin that came after the apple version (including all source code for all versions)
the latest version ran on dos7 (and there was a linux version in the works that was unfinished )
codded by Dan Cohn of technological artisans (1981-2010)
Last edited by VJ AIWAZ; 07-24-2019 at 07:19.
That PSU is Gary Stadler's work, right?
He's also one of the guys who did the "wormhole" effect in the original "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" movie. (Where the Enterprise tries to go to warp but the engines aren't balanced, so they end up in a "wormhole" that looks like a complicated lissajous pattern.) The effect was accomplished with an orange HeNe laser and a pair of AOMs that were used to "scan" the beam at a tiny angle (less than 1 degree). That's how they were able to get such a complicated pattern to scan using late 1970's tech.
I bought some AOMs from him in the early 2000s and chatted back and fourth with him via e-mail several times. Really nice guy with a ton of old-school laser history under his belt!
Adam