After World War II the technological revolution in
lighting control
gained momentum. New component miniaturization technologies were developed, and miniature potentiometers were incorporated into the control boards of this period. The dimmers, installed at a convenient location near the stage, were remotely controlled by means of a low control voltage. Control boards were now portable, and could be placed at any point in the theatre, depending on the needs of the operator and the show: in the lighting booth, on stage, in the auditorium and so on. Boards had two or three rows of presets and different boards incorporated various additional control options. The lighting states could be prepared in advance, facilitating a smooth transition from one
preset
"scene" to the next.
The JP 20 by Strand Electric
At this point two approaches to
control board
design crystallized. The British approach, led by Frederick Bentham, called for dynamic grouping of dimmers and a "built-in"
cross-fade
from one lighting state to another.
The American approach, propagated by McCandless and Izenour, advocated
lighting control
by means of a series of "light pictures" (multi presetting).
The transition from one lighting state or "preset" to another was with an "automatic" dipless cross fade (XF) lever, and the rate of transition of the light from one
preset
to another was uniform for all dimmers.
The progression from manual
preset
boards to computer boards was long and thorny. A predecessor of the fully computerized board was the "memory system" board, which had a magnetic memory but lacked a data processing unit (CPU).
Memory
systems could play back pre-recorded lighting states, yet manual operation was applied to all control functions apart from the retrieval of pre-recorded lighting states.
The first memory systems appeared in the mid-60's: the IDM system manufactured by Strand in 1967 is considered the first effective memory system in the theatre.
The next major memory system to appear was Thorn's "Q-File"
Computerized
lighting control
systems with an integrated CPU appeared only in the early 70's.
System IDM, Instant Dimmer Memory, one of the first memory system control board, made by Strand.
Q-File,
Memory
Lighting Control System, the next major memory system control board, made by Thorn.
Light board by Strand Electric
Compulite
The world's first computerized lighting console, based on a microprocessor, gave lighting designer and board operators a new approach to lighting control.
