Dcroc Posted June 15, 2015 Share Posted June 15, 2015 Is there anywhere that tells the history of LOR, and the first person to sync holiday lights like this at home? Was LOR the first company to produce the controllers/software to make this possible for the homeowner? I first saw this about 5 years ago, but I'm sure it goes back before that. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wmilkie Posted June 15, 2015 Share Posted June 15, 2015 I think the product, blinky lights to music, has been credited to Chuck Smith at PlanetChristmas.com; at least as far as LOR is concernedCheck that website out. May be some more history thereSeems to me LOR has some history on their website as well, just didn't find itSome of us old timers may remember building color organs back in the 70's, not exactly the same thing, but lights to music Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Randy Posted June 15, 2015 Share Posted June 15, 2015 Here's a thread on PC that talks a little bit about LOR history... http://forums.planetchristmas.com/index.php?/topic/5707-lor-history/ 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
plasmadrive Posted June 15, 2015 Share Posted June 15, 2015 count me as an old timer. I did color organs but I also programmed patterns to Christmas music back in the 70s. Had to build everything our selves. Most all logic was discrete. I think we actually did one with an 8080 if I remember right.. been a long time.. I remember taking a 15 foot piece of sheep fence wire and C7 strings and a bag full of diodes to make a matrix. Had to cut every bulb and wire them with a common and a steering diode. Used a 25 amp bridge for power rectification.. I was able to "Zone" the matrix both up and down as well as sideways. What a difference now.. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Denny Posted June 15, 2015 Share Posted June 15, 2015 (edited) I had asked this question several years ago on the old LOR forum. Dan gave the history but don't know if it can still be pulled up since it was so long ago and on the old forum. I stand corrected, the link Randy provided was the question and it was on Planet Christmas, not the LOR forum. Edited June 15, 2015 by Denny Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobschm Posted June 16, 2015 Share Posted June 16, 2015 When I was a teenager in the late sixties, I built a color organ circuit and used it to run a tree in our house. During Elvis singing "Blue Christmas", there was a banging on the door. I opened the door to several police and fire personnel. Seems a neighbor saw flickering yellow and red light and suspected a fire. They all came in and watched. Cool. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sax Posted June 16, 2015 Share Posted June 16, 2015 That was a great article. I never knew the history of LOR and to see how young the company really is....well it is impressive to see how far LOR has come in such a short time.There should be some history, complete with pictures of the old work sites and current work sites on LOR's webpage. Pictures of the old or first controllers with Dan bent over soldering....those have to be laying around somewhere.Anyway, thanks to the OP dcroc for asking the question. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dcroc Posted June 16, 2015 Author Share Posted June 16, 2015 That was a great article. I never knew the history of LOR and to see how young the company really is....well it is impressive to see how far LOR has come in such a short time.There should be some history, complete with pictures of the old work sites and current work sites on LOR's webpage. Pictures of the old or first controllers with Dan bent over soldering....those have to be laying around somewhere.Anyway, thanks to the OP dcroc for asking the question. yeah, that was a really good read. Surprised there is no page here with the whole story and pics/video's. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dgrant Posted June 16, 2015 Share Posted June 16, 2015 I remember when I was young, I wanted to achieve this but never had the funds or enough knowledge. Back then, it would have needed to be relays then either a audio frequency scanner or some mechanical way of telling the relays when to turn on. I would think that the relay contacts would have been a problem with the higher currents and so on. Electronics was just coming into being. I was messing with tubes back in the day! When I had more knowledge, still not enough money..lol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iflights Posted June 16, 2015 Share Posted June 16, 2015 More backstory on Carson Williams... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carson_Williams Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Denny Posted June 17, 2015 Share Posted June 17, 2015 Dan had pictures somewhere of his house all decorated as a gingerbread house too as well as the chime-o-matic. I believe in one of his posts he also said that he no longer had time to decorate his house which seems rather sad with all the product he has brought to the rest of the industry. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LOR Staff Posted June 17, 2015 Share Posted June 17, 2015 I believe in one of his posts he also said that he no longer had time to decorate his house which seems rather sad with all the product he has brought to the rest of the industry. This is true of a lot of people who are in this field. If you come to Expo this year, ask the people in the booths if they do what they do full time, if they are/were decorators, and if they still decorate. I'll wager that most of the ones who say "I do this full time" and "I like to decorate" will then say they are ex decorators. That's not a bad thing (IMHO). We get to play with this stuff 365 days a year, and get paid! The decorations have just moved from outside the house to inside the office. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dgrant Posted June 17, 2015 Share Posted June 17, 2015 That would be a blast to get paid to do this hobby...must be nice! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LOR Staff Posted June 17, 2015 Share Posted June 17, 2015 That would be a blast to get paid to do this hobby...must be nice! On the flip side, we have to deal with the customers that.... well..... Let's just say there is not enough money in the world to deal with. In the past month I've had 2 that threatened to have me fired. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Denny Posted June 17, 2015 Share Posted June 17, 2015 On the flip side, we have to deal with the customers that.... well..... Let's just say there is not enough money in the world to deal with. In the past month I've had 2 that threatened to have me fired. They must be Walmart customers. I deal with them every day too (had to get a part-job to pay for this hobby.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dgrant Posted June 17, 2015 Share Posted June 17, 2015 On the flip side, we have to deal with the customers that.... well..... Let's just say there is not enough money in the world to deal with. In the past month I've had 2 that threatened to have me fired. I hear you. People generally only want to hear good news and when it comes to software, good software takes time, expertise, creativity and so much more. So many people want everything served up on a platter and expect nothing less and its not always possible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caniac Posted June 18, 2015 Share Posted June 18, 2015 On the flip side, we have to deal with the customers that.... well..... Let's just say there is not enough money in the world to deal with. In the past month I've had 2 that threatened to have me fired. might have been the same two that have been trying to get me fired for two decades!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caniac Posted June 18, 2015 Share Posted June 18, 2015 I hear you. People generally only want to hear good news and when it comes to software, good software takes time, expertise, creativity and so much more. So many people want everything served up on a platter and expect nothing less and its not always possible. In the tech industry it isn't so much that, the ones that bark the loudest are usually trying to get S4 to run on Win95 or CP/M!!! After all they are both computer operating systems, how hard could it be? ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dcroc Posted June 18, 2015 Author Share Posted June 18, 2015 I hear you. People generally only want to hear good news and when it comes to software, good software takes time, expertise, creativity and so much more. So many people want everything served up on a platter and expect nothing less and its not always possible. This is not a $10 program. LOR is not cheap, and people should expect nothing less. Otherwise, everybody would be doing it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caniac Posted June 18, 2015 Share Posted June 18, 2015 Actually I find it inexpensive as compared to other software out there! Have seen some stuff $800-$1,200 a seat! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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