Now that we have BioBeams installed in the theater, we need to be able to turn them on and off with
the computer so that our show will not need a human operator. We decided to harness the power of the
parallel port and created the PPARTO (Parallel Port Activated Remote Technology Object).
Here you see the PPARTO in its beginning stages, no box, no fancy plug, just a bunch of wires,
transistors, resistors, and test LEDs resting on Shawn's desk.
Here are close-up pictures of the finished PPARTO's inside. You can see the 8 channels of control it
affords us as well as the shiny parallel port plug.
And here is a picture of the PPARTO happily installed on our server computer.
The next challenge of course was to hook the PPARTO up to the Extensible Hardware Base that we installed
in the Earth Theater. Since CoolNeon requires specially modulated current from its propietary drivers, and
since running that many lasers draws a lot of juice as well, we needed something to act as a translator between
the PPARTo and the EHB. Enter the LANARTO (Laser and Neon-Activation Required-Toggle Override). The LANARTO holds
the drivers for the CoolNeon, the necessary relays to keep the circuits separated, as well as override switches
for each color of laser and whether or not the computer has control. Put simply, the LANARTO not only acts as
a translator it provides complete control to any human operator who may wish to change the show. Say for instance
the theater is not completely full, if there are not enough people on the blue team, the operator could override
the computer and turn on the yellow team's BioBeams as well to help the blue team out.
Here is the LANARTO in its earliest stages lying on Shawn's floor.
Here is the LANARTO in its finished stage, installed in the Earth Theater next to all the other "black boxes" that make
running a huge five projector musuem theater possible.
Complete schematics coming soon for both the PPARTO and LANARTO!!
If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to contact Shawn Patton.
