
The Last Analog Motion Graphics Machine [video] - Unai
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wxc3mKqKTk
======
33degrees
I haven't watched the video yet, but there are definitely analog graphic
synthesizers being made today, most notable those by
[https://www.lzxindustries.net/](https://www.lzxindustries.net/)

There are also quite a few software packages that implement analog synthesis
techniques, like [https://lumen-app.com/](https://lumen-app.com/) and
[http://v002.info/about/](http://v002.info/about/)

~~~
olewhalehunter
was going to say this equipment is still used quite a bit and there are many
working survivors left

~~~
kitotik
You beat me to it. Much like vinyl, this stuff tends to maintain a pretty core
following.

The eurorack modular synth boom is certainly introducing a lot of new people
to analogue video synthesis. Exciting times!

~~~
snaky
> to analogue video synthesis

Video? Eurorack and modular synthesizers of other format and kinds are about
audio, right?

~~~
LeoPanthera
Eurorack analogue video is a thing. If you’re into learning more about modular
synths I can highly recommend the docu-movie “I dream of Wires”.

~~~
kitotik
Yes, an excellent film!

It’s all just voltage, but obviously with video oscillating at much higher
rates.

You use most ‘audio’ modules with video modules and vice versa. All the
typical logic works like divide, mult, add, etc.

It’s a really fascinating format!

------
tudorw
The instantaneous hands on control is enticing, I've played with analog audio
and the immediacy of alterations and infinite resolution is palpable in
comparison to their digital equivalents. He should live stream some 'art'
pieces to music, I'd watch :)

Here's Scanimate + Moog;
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=184&v=1Cywgoftv4...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=184&v=1Cywgoftv4o)

More at
[http://www.scanimate.com/index.html](http://www.scanimate.com/index.html)

~~~
npgatech
"I've played with analog audio and the immediacy of alterations and infinite
resolution is palpable in comparison to their digital equivalents."

This kind of statements bother me because they are simply not true. You can
have "tangible" controls (physical knobs and sliders) with digital signal
processing back-end and I bet you that you can't tell the difference in a
double blind test. This is the same bullshit that is thrown around by
designers, artists and any kind of 'aficionados'\- cliches of romanticization
of the analog.

Oscilloscopes went full digital in 90's not because they were worse than
analog counterparts. These are precision instruments that benefit from digital
processing. Don't get me wrong - I own an analog oscilloscope for different
reasons, i.e. I was fascinated by how things were done back in the day which I
believe is the central theme of this thread. These analog motion graphics
machines are amazing - NOT because of 'infinite resolution' but the __process
__of creating art: Oscillators, scan rates, amplification, etc.

~~~
subwayclub
Digital tends to have more latency by its nature. Parameter changes often
produce zipper artifacts, stepping, etc. It's all solvable, but not uniformly
solved.

~~~
npgatech
>> "Digital tends to have more latency by its nature" \- So...GPS satellites,
atomic clocks, operation of a modern processor are full of latency that humans
can detect? Human reaction time is in the order of 100ms. This statement makes
zero sense. I honestly don't understand and I'd love you to explain what
specific areas you think where this happens.

~~~
tudorw
"I said, ‘No, that can’t be so, Larry,’ ” Eno recalled. “ ‘We’ve all worked to
that track, so it must be right.’ But he said, ‘Sorry, I just can’t play to
it.’ ” Eno eventually adjusted the click to Mullen’s satisfaction, but he was
just humoring him. It was only later, after the drummer had left, that Eno
checked the original track again and realized that Mullen was right: the click
was off by six milliseconds. “The thing is,” Eno told me, “when we were
adjusting it I once had it two milliseconds to the wrong side of the beat, and
he said, ‘No, you’ve got to come back a bit.’ Which I think is absolutely
staggering.”"

[https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/04/25/the-
possibilia...](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/04/25/the-possibilian)

~~~
GuiA
I play an online game (Overwatch) and I can tell the difference between a 20ms
ping and a 40ms one, so I’m not surprised that an extremely proficient
musician with a lifetime of practice can tell a difference of a few
miliseconds.

In high school physics we were doing some experiments around pendulums and
used metronomes to measure the period; I remember the teacher telling us about
a former student of hers, a concert level musician, who could keep a beat in
perfect timing without using a metronome at all.

~~~
crististm
You bet! A 20 ms diff makes a whole lot of difference also when you do high
speed car racing!

------
gt_
TFW you grew up obsessed with video graphics but lived in middle-of-nowhere
Appalachia, then find out this guy's studio was half an hour away the whole
time.

------
Retr0spectrum
Of course it wouldn't be the same, but it would be great if someone made a
software emulator for this. It's the sort of thing that would be a lot of fun
to play around with in a web browser.

~~~
forinti
Or maybe a panel you could attach to a Raspberry Pi. Children would love this.

~~~
SwellJoe
The truly amazing thing is that one can say that with a straight face (and not
be wrong).

The notion that one could take a device that costs a few bucks and replicate a
significant percentage of the capability (at least in terms of results, though
not in terms of the creative process) that cost hundreds of thousands of
dollars and required a whole team to maintain and operate it effectively
continues to be ridiculous to me.

As an old-timer who studied and worked in tape-based analog audio recording
studios and at a pre-digital television station (barely, I was there when the
digital machines moved in, just before I quit), this utter transformation of
all of the audiovisual industries within my lifetime has been nothing short of
incredible. I've watched it happen, and my mind still boggles at what can be
done "in the box", even on modest hardware, today vs. 10, 20, or 30 years ago.
Every decade sees an order of magnitude drop in price and order of magnitude
increase in capability, at least for the non-physical aspects of the job
(cameras, microphones, lenses, speakers, monitors, lights, instruments, room
treatment for absorption/diffusion, etc. still cost a lot and probably always
will, though even many those things have dropped in price precipitously due to
the steadily improving quality of low-end products...once upon a time, a $50
microphone was a joke, today you can make a pretty decent recording with a $50
MXL or similar).

------
davesieg
All good commentary! Glad my preservation efforts have gotten this group
talking about Scanimate and analog. -Dave Sieg

------
zokier
I wonder how much it costs to keep it running; I bet the comment "phew its got
hot in here" is no coincidence, the equipment looks like it will draw some
serious power.

Props to the guy for maintaining the equipment, it is definitely cool thing
even if I struggle to think what I'd do with it.

~~~
Boothroid
I can imagine this having massive potential in music videos.

~~~
Bromskloss
Perhaps more as cool equipment that appears in the video than for what it can
produce. :-)

------
ehsankia
The machine looks fascinating and I would've loved to learn more about the
intricacies of how it worked (and that's the sort of content I come to HN
for), but sadly, nearly the entire 5 minutes ended up being about this guy
being nostalgic, saying how this old system was the best and how the new
systems will never be as exciting.

~~~
makomk
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHjkMThH0aE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHjkMThH0aE)
and the subsequent videos might be more interesting. I remember seeing a
really good video explaining and demonstrating this system a few years ago,
but can't find it again unfortunately.

------
aleyan
> It is very tangible. You can effect the image with your hands. You can
> almost touch it. You can't touch any of this digital stuff, it is in the
> computer somewhere.

My first camera was digital and my first exposure to photo editing was with
photoshop in high school. When I took a B&W photography class as a senior in
college it was eye opening. We were in the darkroom dodging and burning
photographs on the enlarger with our hands; it was exhilarating. I may not see
eye to eye with Dave Sieg on digital, but I completely agree with him on
physicality of creation. There is a qualitatively different feel when you are
working with physical controls and within constraints of a non digital system.

> You plugin in things to make your animation. That is really where the term
> plugin came from.

Also this bit is also quite interesting. Is this etymology true?

------
exodust
Background music sounds very modern and digital. They should have chosen
something analog.

Go back in time even to early 1990s and any video editor would tell you they'd
kill for what we have now with modern digital video including effects.

I recall editing on u-matic tape in the 90s, man that was painful. You
couldn't quite grab a frame, it was hit or miss if you wanted frame accuracy.
I did enjoy the ergonomics of big control panels, switches, dials, but not the
leads and plugs, and not rewinding tapes or losing quality when copying; 4:3
ratio everywhere and the list goes on.

------
bane
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSNwBgO5qVY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSNwBgO5qVY)

~~~
DonHopkins
Sounds like the confessions of a heroin dealer!

5:21 "The true skill of the flying asshole wipe is in the timing."

------
d08ble
Analog is amazing! I'm 3-bit & analog computers fan, but mobile VM platform
much more better under control
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pk58kWIAqMM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pk58kWIAqMM)

------
DonHopkins
Nothing goes better with Scanimate graphics than Raymond Scott music!

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stX3zM2oL8g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stX3zM2oL8g)

"Strict rules of conduct" \-- pff! How retro!

------
bane
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHjkMThH0aE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHjkMThH0aE)

------
DonHopkins
For a great demo of an analog video graphics processor looking at itself, and
a deep explanation of the chaos theory behind video feedback, to some cool
mesmerizing boop boopity boop electronic music, check out Jim Crutchfield's
video, "Space-Time Dynamics in Video Feedback":

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4Kn3djJMCE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4Kn3djJMCE)

"Self-Organization and Pattern Formation in an Image Processing System"

"A video camera views its monitor: information flows in a closed optical-
electronic loop"

Here is his paper about it that he published in Physica (1984):

[http://csc.ucdavis.edu/~cmg/papers/Crutchfield.PhysicaD1984....](http://csc.ucdavis.edu/~cmg/papers/Crutchfield.PhysicaD1984.pdf)

SPACE-TIME DYNAMICS IN VIDEO FEEDBACK

James P. Crutchfield

Center for Nonlinear Studies, Los Alamos National Laboratories, Los Alamos,
New Mexico 87545, USA

Video feedback provides a readily available experimental system to study
complex spatial and temporal dynamics. This article outlines the use and
modeling of video feedback systems. It includes a discussion of video physics
and proposes two models for video feedback dynamics based on a discrete-time
iterated functional equation and on a reaction-diffusion partial differential
equation. Color photographs illustrate results from actual video experiments.
Digital computer simulations of the models reproduce the basic spatio-temporal
dynamics found in the experiments.

[http://csc.ucdavis.edu/~chaos/](http://csc.ucdavis.edu/~chaos/)

A great youtube comment on the video:

Ross Oldenburg

Crutchfield's paper is massively influential for video artists. I've done very
similar things to this. The key is to have an image processing system in the
feedback loop. In this case, he's using a Sandin IP (you can see it at 1:05),
which is an early video synthesizer (that you had to build yourself. there
weren't even kits. Just a manual). That's where the colors are coming from,
and I would guess the black and white fields that are obscuring parts of the
image at points. I would bet he's using a black and white camera, too. To pull
of video feedback like this successfully, you need to have control over all
aspects of the video signal and you need a camera that allows you to manually
control the iris and focus. That said, it's amazing and a lot of fun. And LZX
industries makes something similar to the Sandin IP today.﻿

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandin_Image_Processor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandin_Image_Processor)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qh6jRzjmcY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qh6jRzjmcY)

------
cr0sh
Note: I haven't watched the video in full, so what I say below may already
have been answered in it...

===

Part of me thinks this should be in the Computer History Museum and not in
this guy's garage - simply from a preservation standpoint.

At the same time, I'm not sure if this could be considered "computer history"
or not - though it certainly has elements of analog computing.

The Scanimate was one of those iconic machines that ultimately helped to lead
us to where we are today with computer graphics - if this is really the only
operating one in existence (I don't necessarily doubt it, from the history I
have read about it and early graphics), then proper preservation should be
paramount.

But I can understand if the guy didn't want to give it up.

On a side note - how many here have seen this?:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jj9pbs-
jjis](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jj9pbs-jjis)

Basically - computation of fractals using analog video feedback...kinda
amazing that (in theory) something like could have been done in the 1950-60s
using Eidophor projectors of the era (amazing analog tech in its own right)...

~~~
gabriel34
He addresses this at about 4:05 into the video. Basically he wants it working,
not as a standing display

~~~
Aloha
Thats probably my biggest complaint about CHM, is they have no living displays
- thats what I love so much about the LCM in Seattle, its all living,
breathing tech, that you can touch.

~~~
SwellJoe
When did that happen? When I was living in the bay area, I'd visit every few
months, and they always had scheduled demos of some of the big equipment.
Hell, you could see the Babbage engine running every weekend.

But, they also had a working PDP-1 with Space War that you could play,
demonstrated and described by some of the people who'd built some of the
original software and the game itself.

Admittedly, most of the equipment was display-only, but I think that's
reasonabe...given the cost and effort to restore even one such device of that
complexity, in an era when parts have to be scavenged from NOS or from donor
machines or built from scratch using spotty design docs, it's entirely
reasonable to focus on the devices that are either of notable significance
(the first of a thing, or whatever), or things that the most expertise is
readily available for (a lot of the docents and people who work/volunteer at
CHM are computing pioneers, usually with a history of working with specific
devices).

I love CHM, and think they do a great job, and have always really enjoyed my
visits. I used to drag every visitor I had out to the CHM even if they had no
interest in computers. Most people still enjoyed it. There's something
wonderful about seeing the scale and intricacy of early computers.

~~~
Aloha
I've been twice, and they had nothing of note that was interactive when I
visited.

~~~
SwellJoe
They're scheduled events, so you have to sort of plan ahead.

Check the section labeled "Demonstrations":
[http://www.computerhistory.org/hours/](http://www.computerhistory.org/hours/)

There's a PDP-1 lab, an IBM 1401 lab (that's new to me), and a RAMAC
demonstration.

