coneblog

Version 2 of the Skycam control setup.  Left to right: the Blue and white box houses the twin joysticks for the Skycam pilot.  the left stick is '"Z" or up and down, and the right stick is 'X and Y" or movement parallel to the ground plane.  Below that is a black box with wheels, the "Geared head" used by the Camera Operator to control tilt and pan on the Skycam camera payload.  It is a two man job.  Behind that is the B&W monitor used by the Camera Operator to see the view transmitted by the Skycam.  Next right with the black-surrounded tube is a teeny-tiny CRT monitor used as a test device.  This was before any kind of LCD displays.  The beige box with the black front is a Sage II - a Motorola 68000 processor microcomputer that David and I programmed in Hyper-Forth (a Threaded Interpretative Language favored by astronomers) to be the central motion control computer.  The Silver box atop the sage is a custom GPIB protocol interface box that connected the Sage to the Joysticks and, thru serial links (!) to the motor controllers.  Last is the "dumb" green screen terminal used to display status and coordinates ( no graphics) to the Pilot.