david@twg.com (David S. Herron) (11/27/90)
[Attention comp.sys.amiga readers: This newsgroup proposal is right up "our" alley! Yet, "we" were left out along with all the other various and sundry computer platforms..] In article <7422@shemesh.GBA.NYU.EDU> ittai@shemesh.gba.nyu.edu (Ittai Hershman) writes: >Proposal: The creation of a newsgroup called "comp.multimedia" > to discuss interactive multimedia technologies and > applications: systems which combine text, graphic images, > animation, sound, and/or video, with computer technology. Good idea so far .. >Naming: Ten days ago I floated the idea for "comp.multimedia" on > the comp.ivideodisc newsgroup. The reaction was positive, > but a number of people voiced dissatisfaction with the > term "multimedia". One person typified the naming problem > when he stated: "The lexical token `multimedia' is pretty > much debased." Alternatives such as "polymedia" and > "new-media" were suggested. polymedia?? new-media?? bleah! Why is `multimedia' a distasteful term? I don't understand... It says exactly the right thing to me. *Except* that different people view it in different terms. For instance ... Commodore/Amiga sees the Amiga as being the "perfect" multimedia computer because it outputs NTSC & can easily combine sound and computer graphics and external video and create *video*. Yet the Apple/MacIntosh push the Mac as being the "perfect" multimedia computer because it easily supports CD-ROM & video disk & desktop publishing. Surely if I looked farther, I'd see other things as fitting that term. But so what -- they're all right, but just have different "views" on the term. Multimedia means just what it sounds like: Multiple Mediums. A computer which can work with more than one media at a time is a multimedia computer. BTW, "polymedia" has the same meaning but since it isn't the "popular term" then it sounds Wrong and Weird. And what about "new-media"? Well.. what about 5 years from now when these media are no longer "new"? Have fun, David -- <- David Herron, an MMDF & WIN/MHS guy, <david@twg.com> <- Formerly: David Herron -- NonResident E-Mail Hack <david@ms.uky.edu> <- <- Use the force Wes!