Projectors for Symbolics consoles

[Shepard@MCKENZIE.S&C.Dialnet.Symbolics.COM (Tom Shepard)]

    Date: Thu, 4 Apr 91 09:59:25 EST
    From: HMENDENHALL@ATL.dnet.ge.com (Henry Mendenhall)

    (Sorry if the following question has been asked recently, I haven't been
    following the SLUG traffic closely lately.)

    What's the latest and greatest projector capable of handling Symbolics
    monochrome output?  We are currently using a Sony VPH-1270Q projector,
    which is not too bad, but we're wondering if there's anything out there
    with even better image clarity.

    thanks,
    Henry Mendenhall            |                                               
    GE Advanced Technology Labs | Internet: hmendenhall@atl.ge.com              
    300 Route 38, Bldg. 145-2   | uucp:  ...!mcnc!ge-rtp!atl.ge.com!hmendenhall 
    Moorestown, NJ 08057        | voice: (609) 866-6648                         
    
I can't say what the latest and greatest is.  Houston Lighting & Power
is using an Esprit 1000 (~$20,000) driven by a Covid converter for a
Symbolics monitor.  The image we're projecting is roughly 8x10 ft.  The
convergence procedure for the projector is straightforward, but requires
patience.  CPTFONT is not easily readable, so we generally have to work
with larger fonts.  The converter must get its signal from inside the
console, so we've installed a cable that lets us hook up without opening
the console.

The Esprit was chosen over an Electrohome because of clarity, but that was 2
years ago; the Electrohome 3000 was released about 6 months later, and
seems to be better than what we've got.

We're driving it at 55mhz, though it can go up to 75 mhz.  I'm told that
most projectors only go to 50mhz, and getting enough for a Symbolics can
be expected to cost $$.

The Esprit is appropriate for the conference room it's in, but the best
projector I've seen for auditorium use is a Hughes Light Valve that we
used a number of years ago at Symbolics.


Not appropriate for a Symbolics, but interesting because of the pixel
dimensions:

Greyhawk sells a large area display, 10 x 6.7 ft, 7500 x 5000 full color
pixels, the equivalent of 38 hires CRTs.  It can operate in vector or
raster mode.  In vector mode, it can handle 2000 vectors/sec.  In raster
mode (here's what keeps this from being useful) it takes 3 minutes to
update the display.  I don't know what kind of processor this was being
driven by.