[QuadList] Scanimate - was CMX-600

Thu Feb 25 16:08:58 CST 2010

Dave,

That is a terrific website you have, very interesting.  I have book marked it and will paw through it completely.  I rubbed elbows with Scanimate at "Dolphin Prod" in NYC.  I used to run over and maintain their quad machine.  I never got into the Scanimate it'self as I was there mostly at night after work.  I remember the first time I was there, there was an intermittent problem with the quad, I found a strange signal running thru the video system.  I couldn't figure where it was coming from, but I had their head guy (Bruce Davis) working with me and he shut down each computer in the place one at a time and the damn signal was still there.  About 2 days later, by accident I found an Ampex video DA hiding up under the top of the console with all outputs un terminated.  It was oscillating to beat the band.

Does the name "Steve Rutt" ring any bells?? I knew him many years ago and I kind of associate him with Scanimate.  Haven't seen him in a long time, he is one of the most brilliant people I knew.

Thanks again for the info in that website of yours.

-----Original Message-----
From: Dave Sieg <dave at zfx.com>
To: Quad List <quadlist at quadvideotapegroup.com>
Sent: Thu, Feb 25, 2010 1:11 pm
Subject: [QuadList] Scanimate - was CMX-600

(CMX-600 discussion - SNIP)

Speaking of huge relics that belong in museums... 

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.
So you can fine me for going slightly off-topic but I'm broke anyway... :D

I have the dubious honor of owning the original R&D Scanimate system.  It works.
Its in my studio currently.  You can see more about it at my site http://www.scanimate.net
Scanimate is an ANALOG computer that makes computer animation in real time.
For about 10 years in the seventies, if you saw computer animation on TV it was 
generated by one of the eight Scanimates.  Lots of Sesame Street and Electric Company
graphics, the stomach-swelling Pepto-Bismol "indiGESTion" spot, NBC Nightly News opens, etc.

The Scanimates were produced by Computer Image of Denver, CO.  There were two at
Dolphin Productions in New York City, two at Image West in LA (where I was CE for awhile)
one at RTL in Luxembourg, one in Sydney, Australia at the 9 network, one in Japan, and
the machine I have was in Denver then briefly at Interface in DC.  I have kept the machine in 
good working condition, and in fact recently did a job for buck.tv in LA where we shot the 
CRT directly with a RED digital cinema camera at 4K and got some amazing results.

I am relocating to Asheville, NC and would like to find a better home for this machine. 
I have gotten offers from several museums, although none want to even pay to ship it.
They all want to turn it into a static display of a dead machine.  I would like to find a home
for the machine where it can still be operated, since there seems to be a resurgence in
interest in all things analog, and in the work these systems produced over the years.

To further complicate things, I was recently contacted by a guy who has all the parts and 
pieces (including manuals and spare parts!) to a complete Scanimate system in Denver.
(Long story, I won't bore you with details here!)  He is selling his house and needs to get
rid of it.  Much as I would love to get this machine too, I've already got one too many.

Analog animation is of course a dead art.  The "animator" had to design a complex circuit
and patch together phase-locked oscillators, ramps, summing amplifiers, bias pots, and
multipliers to "build the animation".  Toggling the Initial/Final switch recycled and restarted
the animation, which came out in real time and was recorded on Quad machines 
(SEE! I told you there was a connection, albeit slight!) and IVC-9000 2" helicals which
allowed things to go down an embarrassing number of generations.  It helped that the
"Look" that was in vogue was kind of glowey and saturated (that's really all it could DO!).

That being said, once the animation was set up, there were thousands of knobs that could
be tweaked to get the client (who usually sat breathing down your neck as you worked!) 
happy enough to sign off on it and walk out the door with a quad tape of his project.
You just had to hope he didn't show up the next day requesting one SLIGHT tweak, since
there was no way to even come close to doing the same animation from scratch again.

So.. I know there are many of you in the same boat, having lovingly cared for and kept 
the flame alive on some ancient, once-glittering marvel of technology thats now so far
beyond obsolete that its very existence is a minor miracle.  This stuff and the ephemera
we talk about in this group needs to be kept alive somewhere.  The interest the Scanimate
website has generated, and the continued sales of the DVDs I produced of its old work
and the people who "animated" with them demonstrates that this old technology is far from
dead or even dying.

One of the groups I've had brief contact with is the Moog Foundation, which is building a 
museum in Asheville, NC to house some of the legacy of Robert Moog, the inventor of
the Moog synthesizer.  There is a lot of commonality between the Moog and Scanimate,
but the Foundation is having trouble getting funding for their own efforts, much less
trying to expand to include Scanimate.

So I'm throwing this out to this group to see if anybody has any brilliant ideas for the
long term.

*How do we protect and preserve some of this old technology that was the equivalent of the Apollo program in its own field back in the pioneering days?

-- 
Dave Sieg, President, ZFx inc.
www.zfx.com      www.linkedin.com/in/davesieg
www.davesieg.com
www.scanimate.net

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