TANDY LIGHT CONTROL (1997)

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In the mid 1990's, Tandy Engineer Jerry Heep would propose to the Tandy execs that the lights could be automated, thereby making the process of configuring and updating the messages on the towers much more efficient and cost-effective.

After discussion with Tandy CEO John Roach, it was decided to investigate the possibility of an automated solution. Timing would be perfect for just such an opportunity in 1997...

As luck would have it, Jerry's daughter Nikki Heep, and her classmate Ginney Randall, were students at Texas Christian University and needed a senior project for their Computer Science class. The project outline was to "design and propose a technology solution & present it to a corporation." While many in their class were completing fictitious designs for imaginary companies, Nikki and Ginney had the perfect opportunity to "shine" with the Tandy Light Control project.

Nikki and Ginney began their work on "TLC" - Tandy Light Control.

The course assignment included not only a technology design, but also a presentation to the target client. Since TLC was a "real project for a real company," Nikki and Ginney actually booked a meeting with John Roach and others, to present their solution.

In the Executive Suite of the very towers they were intending to automate, Roach listened in while the ladies introduced their solution... and their college professors watched from the back of the room, making notes and grading their students. Surely, this would have been a very daunting experience for the two ladies, but they completed their proposal with such detail and effectiveness, that Roach agreed to implement the automated solution for the Towers.

(They each received an "A+" for their project)

Nikki and Ginney now had some work to do! Using Visual Basic 5 on a Windows 98 PC, they created the Designer application, as well as the encoding and communications applications, to be able to create messages and send the output to the towers.

Now that Nikki and Ginney were working on the Designer, Encoder and Downloader applications, there had to be somewhere to send the data. That's where Jerry stepped in. He "roped in"  Steve Leininger, who  had led the project for the original TRS-80 Microcomputer many years earlier. They engineered the hardware solution that would sit between the TLC software and the physical bulbs on the towers. This included Leininger's design of a Light Computer ("LC") - one for each tower - and relays to talk to each individual bulb, on either of the two towers, on any/all of the four "faces" of the buildings (two on the east & two on the west).

"These SS relays were special zero-crossing type. The light computer kept in sync with the three phases feeding the relays.  When it was time to program the lights, TLC would send the data to the LC. The LC would start sending the modulated lamp data to the lamp controllers. The Lamp Controllers would read the modulated AC waveform the LC sent and “flag” bulbs to turn on, when commanded by the TLC, via the LC. The lamps would stay on that night until midnight or so and then the TLC would send out the global All Lamps Off command."