The visible revolution of Strand's 430 console was the trackballs and encoder wheels nestling next to the level wheel on the right-hand end of the console: clearly these desks were intended to control more than just the intensity of lights.

The invisible revolution: inside they used standard PC hardware, with a 486 processor (in the 430) and later Pentium processors (in the 500-series consoles) able to drive even quite sizeable rigs without the minicomputers or custom processors that earlier consoles had required. Also, they were software based: they could, and did, evolve, change, improve over their lives by just inserting a floppy disk to install the latest release.

They became the standard control across British theatres and beyond, including across the National Theatre, ushering in an era of one console controlling (and one person programming) the entire rig, whatever mix of lighting technology it contained - now the standard way of working in theatre shows.

Strand 530i
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