Ted worked for Channel 7 in Sydney ~~~~
and way back in the 70s after the lighting on some live shows had been messed up, the station management decided they wanted a programmable system to switch spotlights, flood lights, microphones and even cameras on schedule.

So Ted and a couple of others set to and designed and built the thing from the ground up using a few integrated circuits and a host of discrete transistors, resistors, capacitors and all the rest.

It worked a treat after a few hours tweaking but it cost a bomb to design.

They used it two or three years, then were offered a mini-computer system at about a quarter of the original cost. Easier to program but not a flexible, said Ted.
(Redemption blamed it on the Bossa Nova since, Wed 10 Nov 2010, 9:36, Reply)