Author Topic: Super Password Clue Screens (Read 9162 times)

plinkoplus · « **on:** January 02, 2006, 07:27:35 PM »

Hi All,

I just wanted to know how those little screens which the words appear on the main game table are made.

Could it a certain kind of TV?

Because I would like to either buy them or make my own.

If anyone has information on how I could purcahse or make them, I would appreciate it.

Thanks alot in advance.

plinkoplus

clemon79 · « **Reply #1 on:** January 02, 2006, 07:37:52 PM »

[quote name=\'plinkoplus\' date=\'Jan 2 2006, 04:27 PM\']I just wanted to know how those little screens which the words appear on the main game table are made.

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In all likelyhood, they were small TV's (or the electronics therein) that were mounted into those silly housings they used.

So, build the housing, buy a little TV, take apart the latter and mount it into the former, and yer good.

(Easier said than done? Oh God yes. But he asked.)

TalkingHeadsFan · « **Reply #2 on:** January 02, 2006, 07:41:59 PM »

They very well could have been alphanumeric displays, as commonly seen in many 1980's pinball machines...

http://people.csail.mit.edu/jrb/Projects/a...ic-led-font.jpg

Doug

clemon79 · « **Reply #3 on:** January 02, 2006, 07:43:46 PM »

[quote name=\'TalkingHeadsFan\' date=\'Jan 2 2006, 04:41 PM\']They very well could have been alphanumeric displays, as commonly seen in many 1980's pinball machines...
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I see absolutely no reason why that would be the case, when it would be far easier from a production standpoint to mount some smallish TV screens in there and pipe in the feed from the Chyron.

tyshaun1 · « **Reply #4 on:** January 02, 2006, 07:48:26 PM »

[quote name=\'TalkingHeadsFan\' date=\'Jan 2 2006, 04:41 PM\']They very well could have been alphanumeric displays, as commonly seen in many 1980's pinball machines...
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I'd have a hard time believing they could mount a 11 letter word on a small alphanumeric display, such as "embarassing". Small TV's were starting to become somewhat common then, so a monitor would make more sense.

Tyshaun

Argo · « **Reply #5 on:** January 02, 2006, 09:17:44 PM »

Just wondering... were these devices electrical at all? Could it have been like the style of the magic toaster, with just a card inside with the word on it with a flip down cover over the word? If it were electric, I would bet that the style would be of the alphanumeric display as was previously predicted, but I havent see them up close up enough to describe them.

Ramblingly Yours,
Argo

Brandon Brooks · « **Reply #6 on:** January 02, 2006, 09:23:40 PM »

[quote name=\'Argo\' date=\'Jan 2 2006, 09:17 PM\']Just wondering... were these devices electrical at all? Could it have been like the style of the magic toaster, with just a card inside with the word on it with a flip down cover over the word? If it were electric, I would bet that the style would be of the alphanumeric display as was previously predicted, but I havent see them up close up enough to describe them.

Ramblingly Yours,
Argo

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It had a cord, so if it wasn't "electric" that would be silly. And why is this minutae important? Maybe it's part of being a game show nut.

Brandon Brooks

clemon79 · « **Reply #7 on:** January 02, 2006, 09:31:38 PM »

[quote name=\'Argo\' date=\'Jan 2 2006, 06:17 PM\']Just wondering... were these devices electrical at all? Could it have been like the style of the magic toaster, with just a card inside with the word on it with a flip down cover over the word?
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Okay. Let's think about this for a second.

1) the devices had a cord coming fron them, and

2) how do you suppose they get the words in there? Do you REALLY think they stopped down tape between every word for some chucklehead to run onstage and stick a new word in there?

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If it were electric, I would bet that the style would be of the alphanumeric display as was previously predicted,

And why would you think that? What sense would it make for the production people to come up with a whole seperate system for displaying the words to the players (at significant expense, mind you) when the infrastructure is already in place for them to simply be displayed on a TV monitor?

If those are little monitors, here's what they need to do:

1) Go out and buy two little handheld TVs.
2) Give them to the prop people and tell them "make these look proprietary and put a little sunshade on them so the TV lights don't wash them out."

That's all. EVERYTHING ELSE is built into the studio already.

If, on the other hand, it IS a proprietary device, here's what they would have to do:

1) Commission and build a dedicated electronic device.
2) Commission and build the entire back-end server for the device, including any and all wiring systems necessary to get the client devices and the servers connected.
3) Dedicate a staff member to operating this device during the show, in addition to the guy you already have running your Chyron.

So, you are now Mark Goodson. If these two scenarios are presented to you, which one do you think you are gonna choose?

(And if I'm wrong and he DID choose the latter, then I'll eat my words and call that an idiotic decision at the same time.)

Jimmy Owen · « **Reply #8 on:** January 02, 2006, 09:52:09 PM »

If you were going to make something non-electric at home, you might want to try housing two rolodexes with the words for the day in succession and have the cards notched so they flip automatically when you lift the lid of your housing.

Clay Zambo · « **Reply #9 on:** January 02, 2006, 09:55:36 PM »

I owned a Sony Watchman around the time SP was in production, and wondered if they were using the same TV with some sort of cardboard cover around it. (I'm still betting that's exactly what it was.)

chris319 · « **Reply #10 on:** January 02, 2006, 10:41:38 PM »

They were Sony Watchman guts inside a custom-built case, with Chyron fed to them.

clemon79 · « **Reply #11 on:** January 02, 2006, 10:53:32 PM »

[quote name=\'Brandon Brooks\' date=\'Jan 2 2006, 06:23 PM\']And why is this minutae important? Maybe it's part of being a game show nut.

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'Cuz the OP wanted to know what he needed to do to produce replica ones. I don't know WHY he wants to do that, but I've certainly had similar notions for some props, so I'll give him the benefit.

vtown7 · « **Reply #12 on:** January 02, 2006, 10:54:36 PM »

<Tom Hanks>What! What! Not Toshiba guts?</TH>

Argo · « **Reply #13 on:** January 03, 2006, 11:19:32 PM »

Sorry about that. I never really noticed the cable coming from them before, so definately they are electrical. Reason why i thought they used a magic toaster style card device was that it seemed that SP just felt cheap, especially compared to P+ in my opinion, considering the set size for one thing, and if they made a device like the 'magic toaster', which just looked like a sheet of paper with the word on it, when it was show to the camera one time, and really as previously mentioned before, they could have made a non electrical device fairly easy with a rolodex style device.

Also, just while we're on somewhat the same subject, how did the pyramid main game podium monitors work? were they just a regular monitor as well?

Thanks

mystery7 · « **Reply #14 on:** January 03, 2006, 11:53:26 PM »

Pyramid's monitors were basic CRT monitors...probably so basic they were black and white. They got smaller as the technology improved between the '70s and '80s versions, but always the same tiny TVs. On Donnymid they used laptop computers.

A rolodex-style arrangement for SP would have been cheaper to make, yes...but potentially more expensive in production time lost in tape stops because of wrong cards potentially showing up at the wrong times. A Chyron was the way to go.