vt-100?
December 14, 2007 12:31 PM Subscribe
At the 1:30 mark of this 1985 Live Aid video, there's a computer terminal behind the keyboard player. It looks very much like a DEC VT-100. What would it have been used for on stage?
Wow, no kidding, that's definitely a VT-100!
1985 was the still kind of the early days of MIDI and integrating computers into synthesizer setups. There was a lot of small-time and custom work -- and if anyone could afford a custom setup, it would be The Cars -- so who knows, it could be practically anything. (Hard to see what's in that rack full of equipment underneath the terminal.)
Most likely it could have been used to change the configurations of all those synths between songs. It might have even only been there for a tech, just in case something failed (because all that stuff did fail, regularly).
posted by xil at 12:45 PM on December 14, 2007
1985 was the still kind of the early days of MIDI and integrating computers into synthesizer setups. There was a lot of small-time and custom work -- and if anyone could afford a custom setup, it would be The Cars -- so who knows, it could be practically anything. (Hard to see what's in that rack full of equipment underneath the terminal.)
Most likely it could have been used to change the configurations of all those synths between songs. It might have even only been there for a tech, just in case something failed (because all that stuff did fail, regularly).
posted by xil at 12:45 PM on December 14, 2007
That is indeed a VT100. I'm wondering if there was a synth controllable over a serial port, sort of like a genericized Fairlight CMI.
posted by zsazsa at 12:47 PM on December 14, 2007
posted by zsazsa at 12:47 PM on December 14, 2007
Best answer: On further checking, it looks like it might be a Synclavier. Wikipedia list The Cars as a Synclavier user.
posted by nightwood at 12:47 PM on December 14, 2007
posted by nightwood at 12:47 PM on December 14, 2007
Very much a Synclavier. Nice one nightwood.
posted by The Bellman at 12:53 PM on December 14, 2007
posted by The Bellman at 12:53 PM on December 14, 2007
Response by poster: On further checking, it looks like it might be a Synclavier.
Huh, that page even has a picture of a VT-100. So there wasn't a VAX under the stage then :)
posted by Armitage Shanks at 12:53 PM on December 14, 2007
Huh, that page even has a picture of a VT-100. So there wasn't a VAX under the stage then :)
posted by Armitage Shanks at 12:53 PM on December 14, 2007
Huh, that page even has a picture of a VT-100. So there wasn't a VAX under the stage then :)
Probably not, in my days using Vaxes (vaxen?), the joke was: Real-time processing for a VAX is when you get your results the same day.
posted by nightwood at 12:59 PM on December 14, 2007
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by nightwood at 12:43 PM on December 14, 2007