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equipment and sports gear, had to be
designed and put into practice by
Soviet enterprises and drew up a
summary schedule for this.
At the same time talks were conducted
with over 160 foreign firms to
single out more than 40 foreign enterprises
and companies, the potential
official suppliers to the Moscow Olympic
Games.
In each individual agreement on
delivering equipment the OCOG-80 informed
the IFs about the selected type
of equipment, sports gear, apparatus
or article and the firm-manufacturer.
In April 1978, the Organising Committee,
Glavsportprom and the USSR
Chamber of Commerce and Industry
held a second specialised international
exhibition of sports gear and equipment
in Moscow. This was Sport-78, in
which 193 of the largest firms in 21
countries took part, some of which had
already been made official suppliers,
along with Soviet enterprises. The
exhibition helped determine practically
all the kinds of sports gear, equipment,
apparatus and synthetic floor covering
to be used at the Games.
Most of the sports and technical
facilities intended for the Games were
put to the test at the VII USSR
Summer Spartakiade. New articles
were tested and were, as a rule,
approved by IF officials and technical
delegates. Some of them had to be
updated for the Games in accordance
with remarks made by IF representatives,
referees and sportsmen.
201
Information Devices at the
Sports Arenas
All the information devices used at
the Games may conditionally be divided
into several kinds: generalpurpose
scoreboards (stationary or
mobile), specialised scoreboards
(used for one or several sports), signs,
and demonstration boards.
Computer-controlled generalpurpose
scoreboards promptly informed
spectators, sportsmen, referees
and journalists on the events
taking place. These fell into six types:
1) stationary lit-up tabular;
2) stationary lit-up tabular with
matrix lines;
3) stationary lit-up tabular with one
matrix line;
4) stationary electro-mechanical
(blinker) tabular;
5) mobile lit-up tabular;
6) video matrix (only at the Grand
Arena of Lenin Stadium).
The type of scoreboard, its number
of demonstration panels and control
panels, the use of Russian or Latin
script and the use of various other
effects were selected to take account
of the IF requirements, the specific
nature of the sport in question, and
peculiarities of the sports arena and
its use after the Games.
Two scoreboards were installed at
sports installations where one panel
was not visible to all the spectators,
but there was only one control panel
(the possibility was envisaged of displaying
simultaneously the same or
different information). Mobile
scoreboards were used at certain
arenas where there was no need for
stationary ones after the Games.
It was inexpedient to install electromechanical
(blinker) scoreboards outdoors
or at swimming pools, because
of the possibility of their being damaged
by rain getting into their electromechanical
elements. And vice versa,
when events in certain sports were
held indoors, and especially in those
where information does not change
very often (weightlifting, volleyball,
etc.) it was expedient to use electromechanical
scoreboards, with their
low electricity consumption and insignificant
heat release.
The volume of information displayed
on the scoreboards was determined
beforehand to take account of
the IF requirements.
Twenty-two of the 26 generalpurpose
scoreboards used were manufactured
at the plants of the foreign
trade enterprise Electroimpex (Hungary):
VBKM-Villes, Folk-Djem and
Ravis. Besides the 19 stationary general-purpose
scoreboards, Electroimpex
installed three mobile general-purpose
scoreboards for the first time in the
history of the Olympic Games. They