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From: Mark A. DeLoura <madsax@u.washington.edu>
Message-Id: <9110230646.AA00500@milton.u.washington.edu>
Sender: madsax@milton.u.washington.edu
To: glove-list@karazm.math.uh.edu
Subject: Re: Specifics on VPL's Mac
Greg Newby says:
> They use a high-end model (Mac II cx or fx), 16 Meg ram.  The Mac runs
> a proprietary program (set of programs, really), called "Body 
> Electric."  I only used this a little bit, but it was basically
> an object definition language -- the programmer would specify
> objects and give them characteristics.  The programming language
> didn't seem much different from Hypercard, or maybe a database
> definition language.  Things such as:
> 	define ball
> 		 can move
> 		 has gravity
> 		 size = 10
> 		 shape = round
> 		 initial position..
> etc.  That's not how the language looked, but those are the types
> of characteristics that were defined.

	Actually, that's just the scripting language-- the main part
of the program consists of what looks amazingly like LogicWorks-- a
circuit-building program.  You drag a "+" object, connect it to a constant
and some other things, dee da dee da.  So, it's a dataflow language, 
essentially.  Which causes some problems...variables are a total pain
to try to work with (*WHAT* variables?), and the latest version I worked
with didn't have much support for floating point.  Anyway, I'm not
very fond of it. :)  Nice concept, though.
> 
> Didn't VPL have a demonstration at SIG/GRAPH with only one Iris?  Or
> was it an Iris and a Mac...
	
	We've got ours running on a Mac and an SGI, now-- using a splitter
board to get the stereo.  I hear that they're planning on creating a 
combination of Swivel-3D (the modeller), Body Electric (the dataflow
language), and extra tools-- all in one package, and running on the SGI
platform.  Sounds promising.
>   Anyway, that fills in a few details...
> -- Greg
> gbnewby@alexia.lis.uiuc.edu
	And, a few more details.	
		---Mark

===============================================================================
Mark A. DeLoura    madsax@milton.u.washington.edu      University of Washington
	"...the paneled room folded itself through a dozen impossible
	 angles, tumbling away into cyberspace like an origami crane." 
					--William Gibson, _Neuromancer_