Newsgroups: comp.robotics
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From: seeker@indirect.com (Stan Eker)
Subject: Re: animatronics  sound vs. motion
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Date: Wed, 3 May 1995 05:59:34 GMT
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PMF10 (pmf10@aol.com) wrote:
: I am interested in knowing how sound and motion are used together.  For
: example, if you had head and upper torso movement and you wanted a
: specific sound track to play within that motion, what methods are
: used?????

: please e-mail me if you can help me understand the world of animatronics!!


The old Animatronics that Disney used to use worked like a player-piano, but
with large stacks of disks instead of a cylinder & spool.  They weren't
easily re-programmable, so I'd suspect that as they die they're replaced
with a generic micro (like the PC) with any of the several multiple output
digital control boards (64 or more control outputs).

Disney had what looked like a linear stripe of lever-arm MicroSwitches that
the bumps and grooves in the disks hit.  They went to motors and solenoids
that actually moved the dummies and scenery around.  The cost in time, labor
and materials is probably more than a Pentium + I/O board(s) are, now.  It's
not a '90s kind of technology, what with the cheap processing power we have.

The player-piano stuff was in use up until at least the mid-70s, far as I
know (I never worked for 'em, but was interested, too), and may still be
used in the older displays, but it's highly doubtful they're using the
technology for any of the new stuff since the mid-80s or earlier.

