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From: bob@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (Bob Sutterfield)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.misc
Subject: Re: every icon is an object
Message-ID: <3614@osu-eddie.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 27-May-87 09:33:24 EDT
Article-I.D.: osu-eddi.3614
Posted: Wed May 27 09:33:24 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 30-May-87 01:30:11 EDT
References: <8705190042.AA14664@cogsci.berkeley.edu> <9954@decwrl.DEC.COM> <868@gvax.cs.cornell.edu> <6787@mimsy.UUCP>
Sender: news@osu-eddie.UUCP
Reply-To: bob@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (Bob Sutterfield)
Organization: The Ohio State University Dept of Computer & Information Science
Lines: 49

In article <6787@mimsy.UUCP> steve@mimsy.UUCP (Steve D. Miller) writes:
> ...
>   There was an interesting paper presented at the Summer 1986 Usenix
>(the one in Atlanta).  It was entitled, "A Data-Flow Manager for an
>Interactive Programming Environment," and was written and presented
>by Paul E. Haeberli of Silicon Graphics, Inc.
> ...
>   Haeberli showed a videotape in which he (or someone else, but I'll
>assume it was him) took a tool that provided rotation and translation
>information, a tool that provided images, and a tool that displayed
>images, and tied these simple tools together to build a tool that
>could display an arbitrary image under arbitrary rotations and
>translations.  

	It sounds like they've re-invented (or borrowed) some ideas
from the Evans and Sutherland Picture System's environment.  As far
back as the PS-300 in 1983 or so, this sort of stuff was available,
and maybe before then or on earlier PSs.

	The native language of the box (68000-based, coupla Megs RAM)
had a Pascal-like syntax for dataflow system.  While the machine had
no window system per se (it was oriented towards fast monochrome
vector graphics), it had lots of user interface toys like knobs,
buttons, light pens, etc.

	There was a development environment (PIGS?) that allowed one
to manipulate pictures of boxes representing functional elements of a
dataflow circuit.  An instance of Rotate could be picked from a
palette, rearranged with the light pen, and outputs attached to inputs
of other boxes, the final one of which represented the display itself.
Boxes' inputs could be wired to pictures of the input devices as well,
to make Knob3 control X on the Scaling box or whatever.

	To test your system, I think there was an imbedded
interpreter, so that you could hide the diagram of your circuit and
turn on its function and play with knobs for debugging.  All this was
just a wonderful editor, that spat the native Pascal-like language out
the back for compilation when you were done prototyping.

	My details may be foggy - it was a long time ago and I didn't
know much about user interface design then (many would say I still
don't :-) and I never got the chance to use it much.  But I watched
Julian Gomez do wondrous things with it, and it really felt like The
Right Way to do what it was doing.
-=-
 Bob Sutterfield, Department of Computer and Information Science
 The Ohio State University; 2036 Neil Ave. Columbus OH USA 43210-1277
 bob@ohio-state.{arpa,csnet} or ...!cbosgd!osu-eddie!bob
 soon: bob@aargh.cis.ohio-state.edu