An early CDC 9 track drive about the size of a refrigerator had a great party trick.
Each drive had two reels and two columns to maintain slack when the the tape reels reversed or stopped. When a column loaded you got a loud, satisfying PHONKKK as the vacuum pulled the loop of tape to the bottom of the column.
Each drive had two manual feed buttons to spin the tape in one direction, or the other.
And no interlock.
So all you had to do was load a tape (it was traditional to find a fellow graduate student with thesis data on tape, and do a quick swap with a scratch tape).
Load the tape.
Then press both buttons at once, listen to the PHONKS, watch the reels spin madly, stretching the tape to a tiny thread until it broke, provoking another round of PHONKS.
Over the summer, we set about making the dream a reality. With a couple of Barney dolls, a PC, a pile of Barney applications and a smart student intern, we set about experimentally determining the protocol by which Barney was controlled. By the end of the summer, after much work, we had a student who could sing all the Barney songs backwards, and a pile of software.
The end result is the "Barney Protocol Stack", a set of software components that applications can use to drive Barney. The basic Barney control mechanism is implemented as a Delphi component. It can be driven directly via an on-screen control panel, to move Barney around, play sound samples or read his sensors. Alternatively, it can listen on a network socket for remote control connections. The remote interface allows applications to be written that talk to a remote Barney server; you can telnet to Barney (which is more than I can do to my NT box). This network protocol level is wrapped up by a Java class called BarneyConnection, which offers facilities to move Barney's arms and legs and register to be informed when his sensors are activated.
Using the Barney Protocol Stack, we built a number of applications for Barney. Some were simply feedback applications, that would tell you the progess of activities such as printing your document. Some were monitoring applications that revealed the state of other systems, such as the current network status. Some were communicative applications, such as one which allowed two people to communicate through "Barney semaphore".
It's ironic that Doug Engelbart is most widely known as 'the inventor of the mouse', but specifically created it to be used in combination with a chord keyset so that you could (with practice) point, click with one hand, and type content or CLI commands very rapidly with the other.
On this subject, Alan Kay said:
Looking back I think that one of the paradoxes is that we made a complete mistake when we were doing the interface at PARC because we assumed that the kids would need an easy interface because we were going to try and teach them to program and stuff like that, but in fact they are the ones who are willing to put hours into getting really expert at things - shooting baskets, learning to hit baseballs, learning to ride bikes, and now on video games.
I have a four-year old nephew who is really incredible and he could use NLS fantastically if it were available, he would be flying through that stuff because his whole thing is to become part of the system he's interacting with and so if I had had that perspective I would have designed a completely different interface for the kids, one in which how you became expert was much more apparent than what I did. So I'm sorry for what I did. The Brown/MIT Vannevar Bush Symposium, Oct 1995
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Each drive had two reels and two columns to maintain slack when the the tape reels reversed or stopped. When a column loaded you got a loud, satisfying PHONKKK as the vacuum pulled the loop of tape to the bottom of the column.
Each drive had two manual feed buttons to spin the tape in one direction, or the other.
And no interlock.
So all you had to do was load a tape (it was traditional to find a fellow graduate student with thesis data on tape, and do a quick swap with a scratch tape).
Load the tape.
Then press both buttons at once, listen to the PHONKS, watch the reels spin madly, stretching the tape to a tiny thread until it broke, provoking another round of PHONKS.
and listen for the scream.
I believe CDC added an interlock
Fundamentals and Design
- The Art of Computer Programming - D. Knuth (essential)
- An Introduction to Database Systems - C.J. Date
- Computer Graphics: Principles and Practices - Foley and van Dam
- Object Lessons - T. Love
- Bringing Design to Software - T. Winograd (editor)
- The Visual Display of Quantitative Information - E. R. Tufte
- Envisioning Information - E.R. Tufte
- Visual Explanations - E.R. Tufte
Engineering- A Discipline for Software Engineering - W.S. Humphrey
- The Deadline - T. DeMarco ("A novel about project management"!)
- Death March - E. Yourdon ("The Complete Software Developer's Guide to 'Mission Impossible' Projects")
- Rapid Development - S. McConnell
- Code Complete - S. McConnell
Culture and businessFor the dark side, see Don Knuth Finally Sells Out, Doctor Fun
Over the summer, we set about making the dream a reality. With a couple of Barney dolls, a PC, a pile of Barney applications and a smart student intern, we set about experimentally determining the protocol by which Barney was controlled. By the end of the summer, after much work, we had a student who could sing all the Barney songs backwards, and a pile of software.
The end result is the "Barney Protocol Stack", a set of software components that applications can use to drive Barney. The basic Barney control mechanism is implemented as a Delphi component. It can be driven directly via an on-screen control panel, to move Barney around, play sound samples or read his sensors. Alternatively, it can listen on a network socket for remote control connections. The remote interface allows applications to be written that talk to a remote Barney server; you can telnet to Barney (which is more than I can do to my NT box). This network protocol level is wrapped up by a Java class called BarneyConnection, which offers facilities to move Barney's arms and legs and register to be informed when his sensors are activated.
Using the Barney Protocol Stack, we built a number of applications for Barney. Some were simply feedback applications, that would tell you the progess of activities such as printing your document. Some were monitoring applications that revealed the state of other systems, such as the current network status. Some were communicative applications, such as one which allowed two people to communicate through "Barney semaphore".
CHI '99 Reviewers' comments - a hoot tooIt's ironic that Doug Engelbart is most widely known as 'the inventor of the mouse', but specifically created it to be used in combination with a chord keyset so that you could (with practice) point, click with one hand, and type content or CLI commands very rapidly with the other.
On this subject, Alan Kay said:
Looking back I think that one of the paradoxes is that we made a complete mistake when we were doing the interface at PARC because we assumed that the kids would need an easy interface because we were going to try and teach them to program and stuff like that, but in fact they are the ones who are willing to put hours into getting really expert at things - shooting baskets, learning to hit baseballs, learning to ride bikes, and now on video games.
I have a four-year old nephew who is really incredible and he could use NLS fantastically if it were available, he would be flying through that stuff because his whole thing is to become part of the system he's interacting with and so if I had had that perspective I would have designed a completely different interface for the kids, one in which how you became expert was much more apparent than what I did. So I'm sorry for what I did. The Brown/MIT Vannevar Bush Symposium, Oct 1995
See