How did they do that...

[aaron sica]

....ever wondered how something works on a game show?

I've wondered this for years....The first run of Scrabble (1984-1990)...the display that showed which letters were drawn from the  tiles - that didn't look like a regular CRT monitor. How did it work?

[Neumms]

I've wondered that, too.

On TPIR, I'd love to know how the spinning oval thing on the Magic # board works. And the Six-Ball table on the Gambit pilot. There are funky edits, so I wonder if it really worked yet. It seems pretty easy to aim at the letters in Gambit, for one thing.

I always wondered how in Safe Crackers the dials changed from black to red, until I saw the rather obvious answer that the numbers are on clear plastic. And there's the technological miracle of The Joker's Wild, but that's been explained, too.

[parliboy]

On TPIR, I'd love to know how the spinning oval thing on the Magic # board works. And the Six-Ball table on the Gambit pilot. There are funky edits, so I wonder if it really worked yet. It seems pretty easy to aim at the letters in Gambit, for one thing.

Given that the box containing the game has depth, and there's a shadow below the spinning oval thing, my guess is that it is an actual spinning oval thing.

re: Sixball, it's not easy to aim at the letters because the size of the ball is so close to the size of the holes.  Imagine if you played miniature golf, but the hole was only half of the normal diameter.  Or conversely, imagine if you played basketball, and the hoop was replaced with a hula hoop.

[Chief-O]

On TPIR, I'd love to know how the spinning oval thing on the Magic # board works. And the Six-Ball table on the Gambit pilot. There are funky edits, so I wonder if it really worked yet. It seems pretty easy to aim at the letters in Gambit, for one thing.

Given that the box containing the game has depth, and there's a shadow below the spinning oval thing, my guess is that it is an actual spinning oval thing.

Indeed. I guess some folks forgot Golden-Road.net still has their gallery.

Re. the OP: I had viewed some "Scrabble" earlier this morning, and tried to see how the letters were displayed. To be honest, I'm stumped too. Rear projection would've been my guess, but such a system would probably have been too large and klunky to incorporate into a desk that size (especially with contestants sitting back there, and the various trays for the tiles being in the center). CRTs would be my best guess. Actually, CRTs would probably display scan lines at times (unless they were genlocked to the rest of the studio), and would probably not have looked as sharp as they had on the show. So I'm still stumped.

[BrandonFG]

The Scrabble displays always intrigued me too. I'm guessing the small monitors at the top of the Sprint board were also CRTs?

I've occasionally wondered whether the jumbo neon Scrabble board on one side of the cube was simply for decoration, or were letters somehow displayed during the match?



I've also often wondered what kind of printing equipment production companies have in house to produce nametags or placards for the desk?

[TimK2003]

One of my "How did they do that" questions was the operation of the Jack Clark "Cross Wits" board.  The board grid, IIRC was 12 squares x 12 squares.  Since the puzzle answers varied widely around the board from round to round, was there a single control box with 144 switches to light up whatever boxes were being used in a particular round? 

And what was the turnaround time to change the board when compared to Wheel's old puzzle board?  Since the letters were backlit, were the contestants/celebs still having to "turn around" or leave their posts during the change-up?  That board did not look to be as mobile as the old Wheel board where they could wheel it out of sight for the changes.

[clemon79]

I've occasionally wondered whether the jumbo neon Scrabble board on one side of the cube was simply for decoration, or were letters somehow displayed during the match?

It was pretty clearly just for decorations. There's is absolutely not one reason for it to have an expensive functional purpose and then not show it being used for that purpose on camera.

I've also often wondered what kind of printing equipment production companies have in house to produce nametags or placards for the desk?

For the desk, it would be the ability to print or stick letters on a transparency, I'd think.

[bscripps]

Re. the OP: I had viewed some "Scrabble" earlier this morning, and tried to see how the letters were displayed. To be honest, I'm stumped too. Rear projection would've been my guess, but such a system would probably have been too large and klunky to incorporate into a desk that size (especially with contestants sitting back there, and the various trays for the tiles being in the center). CRTs would be my best guess. Actually, CRTs would probably display scan lines at times (unless they were genlocked to the rest of the studio), and would probably not have looked as sharp as they had on the show. So I'm still stumped.

Your remark on rear projection got me thinking; you could probably rig up a quadruple mirror system and do it with RP.  Projector behind the contestant backdrops, use four mirrors to reflect down under the rotating platform's floor, forward to under the desk, and up to a final mirror mounted behind the visible display.  Hide it all inside black curtains to eliminate light penetration and it might work.  That being said, I can't imagine any producer in his right mind (or even a batsh*t crazy one) saying "Yeah, that sort of complexity is really going to pay off..."

But there are definitely CRT's involved somehow; they'd lose sync every so often when switching the displays between contestants.  See, for example, this clip; watch the right-side contestant's display after the stopper.



Also perhaps worth mentioning: they are, for all intents and purposes, monochrome displays.  Yes, they're blue and white instead of black and white, but they're still just two-color displays; maybe sacrificing color gave them room to experiment with frame rates or resolution?

[Unrealtor]

I think they were CRTs in the front of the desk. This is a full episode that has been linked here before, but the curve of the screen is really apparent in the shadow from the top of the enclosure, particularly for the screen on the right hand side of the desk.

[chrisholland03]

I'm also voting CRTs and looking for a clip where you can catch a scan line.

edit:  bscripps clip was an example I was looking for (no youtube at work  )thanks!

[Chief-O]

I'm also voting CRTs and looking for a clip where you can catch a scan line.

I think Ben's video confirmed it as CRTs; that "jump" certainly seemed like a CRT behavior to me. As far as where the letters came from, I'd have to guess there was an open Chyron channel (or a whole separate system) that fed the letters to the monitors. (Having checked a few "Scrabble" credit rolls, I noticed there were usually 2 "electronic graphics" operators listed)

I'm guessing the small monitors at the top of the Sprint board were also CRTs?

According to this BuzzerBlog post, they were. My guess is that they were installed sideways, with the board's border masking what would've been the left and right edges of the screens.

/this post has been edited for broadcast

[WhammyPower]

On TPIR, I'd love to know how the spinning oval thing on the Magic # board works. And the Six-Ball table on the Gambit pilot. There are funky edits, so I wonder if it really worked yet. It seems pretty easy to aim at the letters in Gambit, for one thing.

Given that the box containing the game has depth, and there's a shadow below the spinning oval thing, my guess is that it is an actual spinning oval thing.

Indeed. I guess some folks forgot Golden-Road.net still has their gallery.

FTFY.

The "oval" is the giveaway here... it's a circle tilted on a mirror.  This is so they can make it look like it's floating in a box, when really, it's just being reflected.

[MSTieScott]

Magic Number is also a lot more impressive when viewed at an angle, like in the picture linked above. Note that the mirror is reflecting a different corner of the enclosure so that it looks like the vertical corner behind the display continues "behind" the mirror.

I've also often wondered what kind of printing equipment production companies have in house to produce nametags or placards for the desk?

For the TPIR graphics, in the '70s, it was usually an ink-and-typesetting system. In the '80s and '90s, they moved to large machines which cut out large sheets of vinyl which were then attached to card stock (imagine a larger version of the commercially-available Cricut machine). While vinyl letters/numbers are still used today for some applications, the majority of graphics are now simply produced on commercial-grade inkjet printers (printed onto paper which is then attached to card stock).

[Jimmy Owen]

Magic Number is also a lot more impressive when viewed at an angle, like in the picture linked above. Note that the mirror is reflecting a different corner of the enclosure so that it looks like the vertical corner behind the display continues "behind" the mirror.

I've also often wondered what kind of printing equipment production companies have in house to produce nametags or placards for the desk?

For the TPIR graphics, in the '70s, it was usually an ink-and-typesetting system. In the '80s and '90s, they moved to large machines which cut out large sheets of vinyl which were then attached to card stock (imagine a larger version of the commercially-available Cricut machine). While vinyl letters/numbers are still used today for some applications, the majority of graphics are now simply produced on commercial-grade inkjet printers (printed onto paper which is then attached to card stock).

Yet they still have some poor schlub write out the contestants name tags though only nine will be ever play a part on the show.

[Adam Nedeff]

Yet they still have some poor schlub write out the contestants name tags though only nine will be ever play a part on the show.

You wouldn't feel that way if you saw the looks on those audience members' faces as you wrote their name on the tag and handed it to them. Every single taping, somebody would say to me "I don't even care if I get called! I have the name tag!" It's the coolest free souvenir you can get anywhere in Hollywood.