/dev/bapril

(For the non Star-wars geeks, this is the control that fires the DeathStar's planet-vaporizing-laser). 

I wanted one of my own. At the time it was movie magic. Now I know it was a Grass Valley Group production video switcher. Kinda kills the moment when you know what the buttons they press in the move would do in real life, but who cares.

So time goes on, then one day I saw this post. Tyler wasn't ready for it, and I didn't have the important parts just lying around on my bench. Fast forward a couple more years. Last week something made me think of this again and I found this on ebay:

Similar items in working condition were well over $20K, this one was under $100 listed as parts only. 

So now it's here. On my bench. I have discovered a few things already. There were more missing keys than in the auction pics, one of the t-bar handles is missing, and though the auction clearly stated that it does not power up... works fine for me. Granted it is mad that is not connected to the part that actually handled the video signal, but that's not going to bother me. We don't need no stinking video!

I've already found a mode where the little VCD in the top right of center will tell me which button was pressed or released and the new value of any of the knobs or variable controls that changes. There is a working MCU in that box. I won't have to re-wire this whole thing from scratch. 

Up next, tear-down and cleaning. 

I'm publishing this to preserve the process for posterity, and maybe source ideas along the way, or inspire others.  Please don't be a dick and blow the surprise.