Catacombs Model Gallery
Year 1 Computers
by Simon Rhodes

• Part 1
• Part 2

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The "chessboard" panel is in the Main Mission computer wall throughout year one, usually in the third grouping of two from the rear wall but not always e.g. it's at the front in Black Sun. It has some squib burn damage as it was right next to explosions in both Another Time, Another Place and War Games. It also appears in the Intensive care unit in Breakaway, is right behind Alan's Medical Center bed in Collision Course, behind the bed next to Koenig's in Missing Link, in Hydroponics in Troubled Spirit and in the Eagle in Testament of Arkadia, Full Circle and Death's Other Dominion. In Year 2, in Brian The Brain it's in the Swift pilot section right in front of the right hand pilot seat and in the life support computer wall, surrounding the core, in Beta Cloud.

This style of panel features two lines of blinking lights. Most have a transfer of some description in th top left corner. Uniquely, one did not, and that is one of the panels here. It is in the Beta Cloud life support wall, the computer room when Koenig shuts it down in Space Brain, is in Hydroponics in A Matter of Balance and is in the Eagle in The Metamorph, All That Glisters, The A B Chrysalis, Immunity Syndrome and others.

The construction of the two panels is different. The one without the label has blocks of coloured perspex stuck to the back (see photo). The one with the label has one block of milky perspex on the back, with roughly-cut coloured perspex squares stuck to the front to give the colour.

This panel can be seen in The Lambda Factor

This is an original four panel frame. It was originally white, for year one i presume, then has been painted again several times in dark grey and black (perhaps for year two or for use in Swifts/Voyagers etc). There are nails sticking out the side and the wiring is a real hotch potch of different types of cables connected by those little plastic joiner blocks. Best of all the bulbs are directly soldered to the wire, no holders and then just popped into holes drilled in the wood. They don't seem to have always waited for the paint to dry either as the diamond pattern of the rear of the perspex panels can be seen imprinted in the paint surface. As usual the little cup hooks are present to take the elastic bands that hold the panels in place.