mike@Brl-Bmd.ARPA (02/05/83)
From: Mike Muuss <mike@Brl-Bmd.ARPA>
....and central computer (Honeywell)....
At the recent USENIX conference at San Diego, R.C. Haight and D.B. Knudsen
of Bell Laboratories (ucbvax!allegra!bwkna!haight@Berkeley) gave a presentation
titled "ARIEL: An Experimental UNIX-based Interactive Video Information
System".
The computers were standard DEC VAXen, running (what else) UNIX. They actually
had one set up, and gave a live demo as part of their talk.
**Most impressive**
To tickle your fancy, I herein reproduce the abstract of their talk.
Too bad I am unable to reproduce the "video palindrome" which is the
Ariel "idle pattern" -- falling though a TouchTone (TM) keyboard forever...
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The major components of the Ariel system are
*) A color video monitor,
*) An associated touch-screen input device,
*) Computer-controlled video disk players,
*) Video overlay graphics devices,
*) Overall UNIX-based computer control
Ariel was developed especially for the new Disney World EPCOT Center,
where it is known as the World Key Information System (WKIS).
To interact with the system, an EPCOT guest merely touches the
"touch to begin" message displayed on the video screen. From that point
the "script" provides video and voice instructions to permit the guest to find
the information he or she required. The two audio channels on the video
disk permit interaction in either English or Spanish. The special video
overlay capability permits entry of up-to-date information ("Todays
Events", etc).
The Ariel terminals have been in service since October 1, 982 and have
proved to be both an effective information source and "attractions"
in their own right.
The Ariel software includes:
*) Routines which provide an interface to the Ariel hardware -- videodisks,
touch bezel controllers, video switches, graphical overlay generator,
telephone -- all accessed via direct RS232 connections. (The touch input
device had an unexpected effect on the design of software tools).
*) Shell level utility commands which use the interface routines to do
some simple task with one or two devices, e.g., play a videodisk sequence
or a tune, or generate a map of touch-sensitive screen areas.
*) A yacc-based script compiler, compiling a new language oriented toward
control of the ARiel devices. (Script is our term for the the instructions
which specify which video sequences to play, which graphics to display,
and what to do when the screen is touched at a particular place).
*) A corresponding interpreter, which includes the compiler output and
some auxiliary files as shared program text.
*) High-level control programs which are used if the application includes
access to attendants and/or multi-machine coordination. These handle
interprocess and intermachine communications.
*) The usual diagnostic routines, logdata reduction programs, etc.
As we expected, using UNIX as a base allowed us to develop a complex
system on time with a small number of people.
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