Lighting with the Apple II: An Alternative Means of Computerizing Theatre Lighting Control

Abstract

For my senior independent project I chose to address the field of technical theatre, and in particular, lighting control. With the growth of electronics technology, theatre lighting has become increasingly automated, so that computerized control is now fairly common. A major problem with most computerized systems presently available is their cost. Due to relatively small volume, these systems have a fairly high per-unit design cost. The goal of this project was to obtain computerized lighting control inexpensively. the method was to use an off-the-shelf micro-computer, with appropriate interfacing hardware, to drive an existing theatre lighting system. Although cost was the main reason for this project, there are other advantages to using a general-purpose micro-computer. These include having the computer available for purposes other than lighting control, such as record-keeping, box office work, and word processing.