I just digitized a bunch of Pepto Bismol commercials and have been watching some old Electric Company episodes for another project, so I've been watching a lot of the Scanimate in action. And have been a big fan, since I was a kid.<br>
<br><br>There's a little fire brewing in my gut to take on this machine. Dave, perhaps we should chat off-list about this. <br><br>Skip Elsheimer<br><a href="http://www.avgeeks.com">www.avgeeks.com</a><br><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">
On Thu, Feb 25, 2010 at 1:11 PM, Dave Sieg <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:dave@zfx.com">dave@zfx.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div>(CMX-600 discussion - SNIP)</div><div><br></div>Speaking of huge relics that belong in museums...<div><br><div>I've communicated with several of the QuadList members about this but thought I'd take the opportunity to throw this out to the group. Its not exactly QuadTape related, but close.</div>
<div>So you can fine me for going slightly off-topic but I'm broke anyway... :D</div><div><br></div><div>I have the dubious honor of owning the original R&D Scanimate system. It works.</div><div>Its in my studio currently. You can see more about it at my site <a href="http://www.scanimate.net" target="_blank">http://www.scanimate.net</a></div>
<div>Scanimate is an ANALOG computer that makes computer animation in real time.</div><div>For about 10 years in the seventies, if you saw computer animation on TV it was </div><div>generated by one of the eight Scanimates. Lots of Sesame Street and Electric Company</div>
<div>graphics, the stomach-swelling Pepto-Bismol "indiGESTion" spot, NBC Nightly News opens, etc.</div><div><br></div><div>The Scanimates were produced by Computer Image of Denver, CO. There were two at</div><div>
Dolphin Productions in New York City, two at Image West in LA (where I was CE for awhile)</div><div>one at RTL in Luxembourg, one in Sydney, Australia at the 9 network, one in Japan, and</div><div>the machine I have was in Denver then briefly at Interface in DC. I have kept the machine in </div>
<div>good working condition, and in fact recently did a job for <a href="http://buck.tv" target="_blank">buck.tv</a> in LA where we shot the </div><div>CRT directly with a RED digital cinema camera at 4K and got some amazing results.</div>
<div><br></div><div>I am relocating to Asheville, NC and would like to find a better home for this machine. </div><div>I have gotten offers from several museums, although none want to even pay to ship it.</div><div>They all want to turn it into a static display of a dead machine. I would like to find a home</div>
<div>for the machine where it can still be operated, since there seems to be a resurgence in</div><div>interest in all things analog, and in the work these systems produced over the years.</div><div><br></div><div>To further complicate things, I was recently contacted by a guy who has all the parts and </div>
<div>pieces (including manuals and spare parts!) to a complete Scanimate system in Denver.</div><div>(Long story, I won't bore you with details here!) He is selling his house and needs to get</div><div>rid of it. Much as I would love to get this machine too, I've already got one too many.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Analog animation is of course a dead art. The "animator" had to design a complex circuit</div><div>and patch together phase-locked oscillators, ramps, summing amplifiers, bias pots, and</div>
<div>multipliers to "build the animation". Toggling the Initial/Final switch recycled and restarted</div><div>the animation, which came out in real time and was recorded on Quad machines </div><div>(SEE! I told you there was a connection, albeit slight!) and IVC-9000 2" helicals which</div>
<div>allowed things to go down an embarrassing number of generations. It helped that the</div><div>"Look" that was in vogue was kind of glowey and saturated (that's really all it could DO!).</div><div><br>
</div>
<div>That being said, once the animation was set up, there were thousands of knobs that could</div><div>be tweaked to get the client (who usually sat breathing down your neck as you worked!) </div><div>happy enough to sign off on it and walk out the door with a quad tape of his project.</div>
<div>You just had to hope he didn't show up the next day requesting one SLIGHT tweak, since</div><div>there was no way to even come close to doing the same animation from scratch again.</div><div><br></div><div>So.. I know there are many of you in the same boat, having lovingly cared for and kept </div>
<div>the flame alive on some ancient, once-glittering marvel of technology thats now so far</div><div>beyond obsolete that its very existence is a minor miracle. This stuff and the ephemera</div><div>we talk about in this group needs to be kept alive somewhere. The interest the Scanimate</div>
<div>website has generated, and the continued sales of the DVDs I produced of its old work</div><div>and the people who "animated" with them demonstrates that this old technology is far from</div><div>dead or even dying.</div>
<div><br></div><div>One of the groups I've had brief contact with is the Moog Foundation, which is building a </div><div>museum in Asheville, NC to house some of the legacy of Robert Moog, the inventor of</div><div>the Moog synthesizer. There is a lot of commonality between the Moog and Scanimate,</div>
<div>but the Foundation is having trouble getting funding for their own efforts, much less</div><div>trying to expand to include Scanimate.</div><div><br></div><div>So I'm throwing this out to this group to see if anybody has any brilliant ideas for the</div>
<div>long term.</div><div><br></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><b><i>*How do we protect and preserve some of this old technology that was the equivalent of <span style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;"><b><i>the Apollo program in its own field back in the pioneering days?</i></b></span></i></b></span></div>
<div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br><br>-- <br>Dave Sieg, President, ZFx inc.<br><a href="http://www.zfx.com" target="_blank">www.zfx.com</a> <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/davesieg" target="_blank">www.linkedin.com/in/davesieg</a><br>
<a href="http://www.davesieg.com" target="_blank">www.davesieg.com</a><br>
<a href="http://www.scanimate.net" target="_blank">www.scanimate.net</a><br><br>
</div></div>
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