solid@aucs.AcadiaU.ca (Tomasz Muldner) (04/02/91)
I've spent last couple of weeks reviewing various authoring systems for IBM-compatibles. Now, I'd like to start working on *multimedia*. Here, at Acadia we have several 386's, IBM clones and right now none of them has any "multimedia hardware" (CD-ROM, etc.). I'd like to be able to store/play sound and store/play realtime animation. Would you please send me suggestions as to what I should buy (for example, what hardware boards for the sound; can DVI be installed in a clone, etc.). My budget is rather limited, and I'm too poor to waste money on hardware that hasn't been tested. I'll post responses. P.S. Please don't suggest Amiga's and Mac's (I have nothing against them, but I've made up my mind and will be using 386/486's). -- Dr. Tomasz Muldner, Professor, Jodrey School of Computer Science Acadia University, Wolfville, NS, Canada B0P1X0 Internet: solid@aucs.acadiau.ca PHONEnet: (902) 542-2201x578
marti@saturn.ucsc.edu (Marti Atkinson) (04/04/91)
>I've spent last couple of weeks reviewing various authoring systems for >IBM-compatibles. Now, I'd like to start working on *multimedia*. >Here, at Acadia we have several 386's, IBM clones and right now none of >them has any "multimedia hardware" (CD-ROM, etc.). I'd like to be able to >store/play sound and store/play realtime animation. Would you please send >me suggestions as to what I should buy (for example, what hardware boards >for the sound; can DVI be installed in a clone, etc.). My budget is rather >limited, and I'm too poor to waste money on hardware that hasn't been tested. We've been working with the AVC boards put out by IBM. We like the boards themselves and they do hardware compression of audio and video stills very well. The user interface for the software which comes with the boards can leave several things to be desired, especially the graphics. At the moment this setup doesn't handle real time animation or moving video in any satisfactory fashion. However, Intel is due to put out a new DVI chip next year which is supposed to support both moving video and 3D graphics. With the announcement of the new chip, IBM is supposed to be also the release of new products that use the chip... so it's a wait and see proposition. You might also want to investigate TookBook and Authorware which are both authoring systems which may give you more of what you want right now on your hardware. Marti Atkinson University of Calif. at Santa Cruz marti@saturn.ucsc.edu marti@uccrls.BITNET ..!ucbvax!ucscc!saturn!marti
willdye@typhoon.unl.edu () (04/06/91)
marti@saturn.ucsc.edu (Marti Atkinson) writes: >>Here, at Acadia we have several 386's, IBM clones >> Would you please send >>me suggestions as to what I should buy >You might also want to investigate TookBook and Authorware which You might call Spinnaker software for their 'Plus' system. It's basically Hypercard with improvements. They discounted the $500 list down to $150 for schools, and even gave me a free copy (but I don't know how often they do things like that). It runs on Mac, Windows, and OS/2. It is being ported to UNIX and others. I haven't had the chance to work in detail with it yet, but reviewers in PC magazine said it was better than Toolbook in several respects, and the manual insists it can do multimedia (but I don't know how, yet). William L. Dye --willdye@typhoon.unl.edu