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Conference hydra::amiga_v1

Title:AMIGA NOTES
Notice:Join us in the *NEW* conference - HYDRA::AMIGA_V2
Moderator:HYDRA::MOORE
Created:Sat Apr 26 1986
Last Modified:Wed Feb 05 1992
Last Successful Update:Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:5378
Total number of notes:38326

4817.0. "Do a demo at the Computer Museum" by MR4DEC::GAY (Underground living can be Hobbit forming) Wed Jun 12 1991 12:34

    Want to really show off what an Amiga can do?
    
    The Computer Museum in Boston is setting up an exhibit
    
    	"Computer Applications, Tools and Toys" 
    
    Scheduled to start June 11, 1992, to be prototyped in Oct/Nov
    this year.  
    
    They are looking for volunteers to set up neat applications for
    them.  One of the areas that they are interested in is multimedia.
    
    It seems to me that really neat (toaster?) applications should 
    be possible, but I don't have the know-how to set one up.  
    (They would provide the hardware for the show and for the 
    development - they hit up companies for donations of equipment 
    and money).  
    
    There is an open house for volunteer TONIGHT (Wed, 6/12/91) from
    6 to 9 at the Museum (Museum Wharf in Boston, they share the
    building with the Children's museum).
    
    If you want more information, call Dave Greschler, he's the person
    setting up the exhibit, at (617) 426-2800 x349
    
    I'm going to try to put together a little v.r. demo running on an
    Amiga for the show.  I think it would be neat if we could have some
    more systems showing what REAL computers can do for you...
    (Otherwise it will be all Mac and PCs).
    
    Yours
    Eben Gay
T.RTitleUserPersonal
Name		DateLines
4817.1Caligari or VideoScape Virtual Reality?MR4DEC::GAYUnderground living can be Hobbit formingWed Nov 27 1991 16:3336
    Well, since .0 generated so much interest...!
    
    Any VideoScape or Caligari users out there who'd like to help
    generate a virtual world for a demo at the Computer Museum?
    
    I am building a Virtual Reality demo for the Computer Museum
    (it means I was forced to take home a Sense8 V.R. system to 
    play with... I fought hard but reluctantly gave way).
    
    It's a DEC 486 based PC with a couple of Intel DSP boards 
    that do the polygon drawing for the display (see, PCs don't 
    have built in graphics hardware like SOME computers do..).
    
    Sense8's WorldToolkit (tm) software reads the world description 
    (objects) in, reads the sensor positions, and displays the view 
    of the world.  It can read several different file formats, 
    including the Amiga packages Caligari and VideoScape (hasn't 
    this upgraded to something?).
    
    So far, I have built several little worlds by hand.  Entering
    3D coordinates with SEDT has begun to lose its appeal to me though.
    I would like to build a nice dungeon to walk through in real-time,
    but don't feel like entering (and checking and re-checking until
    it works!) that many coordinates.
    
    If any of you are interested, send me mail at MR4DEC::GAY.
    
    (By the way, since the PC is pushed to the wall just to do the
    displaying, I have hooked an Amiga to it to provide the voice, sounds,
    help graphics, etc. I just wish I had a V.R. system from W Industries 
    (they are Amiga 3000 based), so I could dump the PC.  Working on both
    the museum's PC and my Amiga in parallel has reinforced my feeling 
    that I bought the right computer.)
    
    Yrs
    Erg
4817.2KALI::PLOUFFOwns that third brand computerMon Dec 02 1991 09:514
    FWIW, Sense8's prototype was done on an Amiga.  The "real" product :-)
    appears to be PC-only.
    
    Wes
4817.3Synergy between Ami and PCMR4DEC::GAYUnderground living can be Hobbit formingTue Dec 03 1991 17:1723
    BUMMER!!!  I'll have to bug them about that.  By the way, it runs
    on SPARC's as well as PCs.  (I haven't seen it on a Sun SPARC Station,
    but have heard that it runs there).
    
    Getting the two machines talking in parallel has been interesting (the
    PC seems to ignore the handshake on the parallel port - only watching
    the busy line, while the Amiga uses the handshake and doesn't set the
    busy line - bad news.  The PC blasts data down faster than the Amiga
    reads it in.  I've worked around it by having the PC send every
    character twice, but it's a distinct hack!).
    
    The result has been very good though - Having the Amiga act as narrator
    and having it put up help pictures (this is a spaceball, this is how
    to use it to move around) has made a big difference.  Next is to add
    the sounds - "bonks" and "zooms".  I've learned a great deal about my
    Amiga during this process - multitasking communication, parallel port
    direct access, narrator device, how to read PC disks, etc.  It's been fun.
    
    The first cut at the demo should be in the Museum later this month for
    testing.  I'll let y'all know when.
    
    Yours
    Erg