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Computers & Interfaces
Computers I've used and interface hardware I've built or purchased
AMIGA
The first computer I ever used for doing a laser light show was an old Amiga 1200. It required some internal modifications as well as an external DC level shifter to make it drive a laser scanner. The details of those mods are on the 'Amiga 1200 Modification Project' page and are a must to effectively drive a scanner from an Amiga 500 or 1200 computer. The reason for using those particular computers is that Pangolin (a laser show software company still in business today) had an early version of software that ran on the Amiga 500. I discovered through my project that the software would work even better on the 1200 (runs faster). A programmer in the UK also wrote a program to do laser displays for the A500 (also works fine on the 1200) so there was a double reason to mod and use my A1200's. These computers used the audio output to drive the laser scanner so no special interface was needed other that the level shifter.
PC (and most IBM compatibles)
Of course later on more laser show software showed up on the internet that would run on a PC (IBM compatibles) in MS Windows and even some that run in a LINUX operating system (including Apple's OS). That being the case, you can run a laser show from just about any currently available computer now, and there are a good number of programs available for free or at least very inexpensive.
These computers sometimes (depending on the chosen software) will need an external interface though which can get a little expensive, so it will be less expensive to chose software that can utilize the audio section of the PC or a cheap external audio interface of some sort.
There might be some DIY laser scanner interfaces to be found if you do some web searching... I have not yet done that.
I have only one interface right now (called the 'DAWG') that is not an audio board. It came with one of the SVS Kits laser scanners I found on Ebay years ago, but I have not used it yet. It works from a parallel computer interface if I remember correctly. I'll have to dig that out some time and see if I can figure out how to use it.
The first computer I ever used for doing a laser light show was an old Amiga 1200. It required some internal modifications as well as an external DC level shifter to make it drive a laser scanner. The details of those mods are on the 'Amiga 1200 Modification Project' page and are a must to effectively drive a scanner from an Amiga 500 or 1200 computer. The reason for using those particular computers is that Pangolin (a laser show software company still in business today) had an early version of software that ran on the Amiga 500. I discovered through my project that the software would work even better on the 1200 (runs faster). A programmer in the UK also wrote a program to do laser displays for the A500 (also works fine on the 1200) so there was a double reason to mod and use my A1200's. These computers used the audio output to drive the laser scanner so no special interface was needed other that the level shifter.
PC (and most IBM compatibles)
Of course later on more laser show software showed up on the internet that would run on a PC (IBM compatibles) in MS Windows and even some that run in a LINUX operating system (including Apple's OS). That being the case, you can run a laser show from just about any currently available computer now, and there are a good number of programs available for free or at least very inexpensive.
These computers sometimes (depending on the chosen software) will need an external interface though which can get a little expensive, so it will be less expensive to chose software that can utilize the audio section of the PC or a cheap external audio interface of some sort.
There might be some DIY laser scanner interfaces to be found if you do some web searching... I have not yet done that.
I have only one interface right now (called the 'DAWG') that is not an audio board. It came with one of the SVS Kits laser scanners I found on Ebay years ago, but I have not used it yet. It works from a parallel computer interface if I remember correctly. I'll have to dig that out some time and see if I can figure out how to use it.
