“Disco” combined a self-contained optical output unit with a four-channel control console connected by cable. It could operate either automatically in response to music or as an instrument controlled by a performer.
The optical unit could project onto its own hemispherical screen or, with that screen removed, onto an external surface. Light passed through two rotating disc stencils fitted with lenses. The moving lenses projected the lamp filaments as complex, high-contrast patterns. Four coloured glass filters were attached to the inner stencil and rotated with it. Users could replace the filters, combine one or several colours, and make their own stencils.
A geared DNV-4-2U4 electric motor rotated the stencils. A cooling fan was mounted on the same shaft.
The resulting light compositions depended on the stencil design, the shape and position of the lamp filaments, the size and optical properties of the lenses, and the type of reflector.
The console could control several kinds of projection unit. Four brightness controls on the front were used in manual mode. The rear panel provided two connectors for matching optical units, four sockets for additional loads of up to 100 W per channel and an audio input for automatic operation. Users could therefore adapt both the console and the projection system to create their own light compositions.
Optical unit: 375 × 335 × 430 mm, 7 kg. Control console: 315 × 250 × 95 mm, 6 kg.
A Kazan factory mass-produced “Disco” from 1985 to 1992. The design was protected by a Soviet inventor’s certificate and an industrial-design certificate. It appeared at exhibitions in Bulgaria, Poland, Syria, Greece and Czechoslovakia.
With minor changes, one electronic unit could control four optical units with their screens removed. The resulting system could project coloured light onto a cinema screen, scenery or the stage of a small club. Proposed upgrades included a tempo analyser and a music–speech analyser.
The device was described in Stage Equipment and Technology (no. 2, 1984, pp. 18–20), Lighting Engineering (no. 4, 1985, pp. 27–28), Technology for Youth (no. 3, 1986, p. 2) and Technical Aesthetics (no. 9, 1987, pp. 8–10). A fuller account appears in Rustem Saifullin, “Light and Sound in the Service of Medicine”, appended to O. G. Karataev et al., Radio Electronics in Occupational Safety Technology (Moscow: Znanie, 1986), pp. 52–63.
