Automated Lighting, 3rd Edition

Chapter 14

DMX

Those parts of the system that you can hit with a hammer (not advised) are called hardware; those program instructions that you can only curse at are called software.—Author unknown

Before 1986, automated lighting manufacturers were left to their own devices when it came to controlling lighting and the protocol they used. Some used digital control and others used 0–10 volt analog control or some other analog scheme. As a result almost every automated lighting controller was proprietary to one type of fixture and every fixture was wired directly to the controller or to a repeater box. There was no interoperability between different manufacturers’ gear without the use of signal converters, if at all. Analog control cables were ...