I'm working on my degree dissertation and I'm looking for a product history of the Wholehog series. (First launch of the HogII, ...) Or if it exists something like an archive of the "most important" moving light consoles.
Here's the history of Flying Pig Systems through the release of the Wholehog 2:
Simon England and Nick Archdale (Beaky) founded The Digital Lighting Desk Company (DLD) in 1984/5 although they were originally called Compulights believe it or not. They changed the name because they thought the Compulights name sucked.
The desk they developed was the DLD6502 which ran 180 channels (analogue) of desk channels and moving lights (number of each and "personality" of latter set by EPROM). Tom Thorne joined in 1985/6 to write software using Motorola 6502 assembler, as the desk "embedded" a BBC micro computer. A few consoles were sold; LightPower in Paderborn has one (in a glass case now in reception), as does Jansen & Jansen in Holland. DLD ran out of cash in 1987 and was wound up.
Nick then concentrated on the world of production founding DLD Productions with Andy Neal and we used the desk to run dimmers, scrollers and Goldenscans at all the various raves/balls they lit from 1988 through 1991.
In 1988/1989 they moved into 53 Northfield Road with The SpotCo and the DLD desk was thus brought to the attention of Peter Miles and Tim Bayliss who saw the need for such a console in the blossoming DMX moving-mirror market.
SpotCo provided a portion of the seed money and all the encouragement for the team to develop a new console the blue-print of which was largely fully-formed in Nick’s head having spent hours behind the DLD6502, Vari*Lite Series 100 and Artisan consoles. He flew to the USA in 1991 to find Tom Thorne who was graduating from Stanford Business School with Nils Thorjussen. They drove across the USA that summer and conceived Flying Pig Systems and the Wholehog.
Flying Pig Systems was founded by three people in October 1991; Tom Thorne, Nils Thorjussen and Nick Archdale. Work commenced immediately on the Wholehog (1) with just Tom and Nick doing the development (Tom developing software and Nick developing hardware). The first show using the Wholehog was the following July and the console was released at PLASA 1992 and in production shortly afterwards. The entire development cycle was less than a year!
Wholehog consoles were built by hand by Nick while Tom continued the software development. Unfortunately, this left them no resources to develop a successor which they felt was needed, so they HAD to cease manufacturing to develop the Wholehog 2.
So, with no income stream, their backs were once again against the wall while they got Wholehog 2 up and running. However, they did take on their first employee, Nick Denville (software developer) to help with the Jands desks that they were also jointly developing (talk about biting off more than you can chew!).
Wholehog 2 was previewed at PLASA 1994 in order to alert the industry of their intentions. The console went into production in 1995.
