LASERS! && Freemont Street LED array (was Re: Cray J932SE (was Re: Straight 8 up on Ebay just now))

[Karl-Wilhelm Wacker]

They generaly use mirrors -

 I would cobble something together by taking the laser diode read head from 
a CD rom,
and removing the diode assembly, and glue a small, thin, front surface 
mirror in its place,
and drive the coil from the output of an audio amp, just to try it out.
 A pair of these, at right angles, would give you X/Y deflection.

Karl



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mouse" <mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG>
To: <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Tuesday, July 19, 2016 4:02 PM
Subject: Re: LASERS! && Freemont Street LED array (was Re: Cray J932SE (was 
Re: Straight 8 up on Ebay just now))


>>> Light show hobby.
>
> You'd probably know, then - what's the fastest way to deflect a laser
> beam?  In particular, I'm wondering how practical it might be to take a
> laser and turn it into a vector display on a handy blank wall - but
> that requires some very fast acceleration of the spot, probably faster
> than mechanical deflection can support (though if I'm wrong I'd love to
> know it).  For example, does piezoelectricity make a crystal distort
> enough to use it as an optical deflection element in such a scheme?
> (My guess is no, but I don't actually know.)
>
> I have SPARCstations with cg6s that I can use as vector displays, but
> they are vectors converted to raster.  I'd like to do real vector - a
> parallel port driving a couple of moderately fast D->A converters might
> be able to do it; it might take something better, dunno.  But without
> the deflection mechanism there's no point in even trying to design the
> rest of it.
>
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