1989- 1990 was the season that TAG-Heuer first sponsored skiing in North America. Fred Patton's Event Services company had been timing World Cups since 1982 for TIMEX and then AT&T.
TAG-Heuer came on board with Olivetti as the results sponsor starting in the fall of 1989 at Park City.
The 1989 races were the first time that a full color TV graphic had ever been displayed for a timing sponsor.
The multiple TDC 4000 timers are being used for the sections of the course. All of the starts were paralled together. Each TDC did an intermeadiate and then there was one for the finish.
All of the scoreboard outputs fed into the manual switch box. The box only allowed one signal to leave. Amazingly this crude but effective technique worked. The operator would slide along the bench switching the scoreboard output during the period that the time was frozen. You only had 4 seconds to make sure you knew which machine the racer was coming to next.
The TV graphics were handled by two JVC Mindset PCs. One was fed from the TDC that was for the finish. It ran all the time until the racer finished. Then there was another machine for the intermeadiates. The operator had to really watch the TV monitor from the broadcaster. The TDC 4000 switch box would hiccup every once and awhile and the "Sanitize" key would have to be pressed.
Timing a World Cup with 3 technicians in the pre software days was challenging and fun.
We found these old slides and had then scanned.
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