Talk:Multimedia

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                                                Written by Mandar Salvi 

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Multimedia :

Multimedia in PC is becoming a business tool as well as educational tool. For many applications, clicking on the OK button will bring up an animated screen of a teacher explaining features of that program rather than simple text screen Multimedia is consisting of a Sound Blaster, a board that allows your PC to emit various kinds of sound. Nowadays you can buy sound card that can produce superior quality of sound. Animation requires good sound equipments.

CD ROM DRIVE :

Physically, most CD ROM drives look pretty much alike. The front panel has power indicator, CD busy signal, an eject Yobutton, a manual eject button and a volume controller.

Sound Card :

Sound card is required to be installed on the motherboard only if you need audio interface in your PC.This is useful only if you are keen about using multimedia. These sound cards are available in various versions. Just make sure that the card you have selected matches your motherboard 3 D sound card gives a special sound effects if your are keen on playing latest games otherwise 32 bit PCI card is suitable.

Multimedia Keyboard :

Multimedia Keyboards, which are more suitable for multimedia applications, are available in market. These possess some extra keys, which are programmable such as controlling volume etc.

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hello, i am maxime en this site is from maxime. what is the differance between passive and interactive multimedia.

) 10 mei 14:07 2006 (:

I would think passive would be radio and television and interactive would be the Internet and computer gaming and such. Quinobi 09:00, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Radio would be monomedia (audio only). Passive multimedia would be something like a Pink Floyd Laser Light Show at the planetarium, where you have sound and lasers, but the viewer is a passive receptor of the content. Interactive multimedia requires the viewer to be an active participant in the display of the content. Arguably there could be other states of multimedia. Passive/agressive multimedia, for example, where the viewer can only choose from few predetermined paths (as with the early interactive CD-ROM titles) or active multimedia, where one actually participates in the creation of the multimedia.

How would multimedia be used to develop special effects in movies?

[edit] reverted edit by 24.45.15.41

The following was added by 24.45.15.41 with terrible formatting, while obliterating the "Exploding Plastic Inevitable" reference along with the entire bottom of the page (interwiki links, etc.)

I reverted the edits, but I thought some of it might actually be valid, any opinions on this material? - Rainwarrior 18:57, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

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The term "multimedia" was coined by Bob Goldstein (later 'Bobb Goldsteinn') to promote the July 4,1966 opening of his "LightWorks at L'Oursin" (a Southhampton, L.I. niteclub that was later known as Conscience Point). Initially, only three published articles about Bob and his work actually used the term:

NEWSDAY, Monday, August 8, 1966. Modesty Blaise Previews in a Juke Box By Joseph Gelmis

“… The most avant garde of all spy films, “Modesty Blaise” is sure to arouse passionate love or hate. Having the preview at the “LightWorks” was inspired because, in its violence, escapism and breathless assaults on all senses at once, the film held up the mirror to this most quintessentially modern of 'multimedia' clubs and the young crowd that frequents it.”

VARIETY, New York, August 10, 1966. Goldstein’s ‘LightWorks’ at Southampton Preem By Richard Albarino (writing as ‘Doro’)

“Brainchild of songscribe-comic Bob ('Washington Square') Goldstein, the 'Lightworks' is the latest multi-media music-cum-visuals to debut as discotheque fare. Though making its first public bow this summer, the 'total theatre' electronic assault is actually one of the progenitors of the format and idea-source for super-Scopitone fruggeries currently blossoming across the U.S.”

WOMEN’S WEAR DAILY, Thursday, August 25, 1966. A FIRST IN FASHION – Fashion LightWorks (Unsigned)

“Southampton tonight will see a new way to put on a fashion show at L’Oursin’s. Ken Scott of Milan’s winter collection will be shown in a multi-media of LIGHTWORKS combining live models with film, slides and sound. … A NEW WAY TO SEE FASHION.”

The term fell into disuse, but then resurfaced two years later in the fall of 1968, describing the mix of media used in a particular political campaign. 'Multimedia' starts to appear in discussions about the first political campaigns being run by the late David Sawyer, now considered the father of 'Political Consulting' (which is just a fancy word for a person with a gift for applying the principals of advertising to the campaigns of office-seekers).

David Sawyer was the trophy husband of Iris Sawyer who was one of Goldstein’s three 'Producers' at L'Oursin: Iris Sawyer, Alan Patricof and Elinor Silverman, the Cat Show Publicist.

1969. The term works so well for David's first clients that it becomes an industry staple as more failed ad guys star repping monied office-seekers. Then 'advertising' itself embraces it.

This remains the case until computers take over the world and pros start referring to its menu of possibilities as 'Multimedia.’

New Year's 1996. The most prestigious language organization in Germany decrees thus, according to the Variety of January 1-7, 1996:

“SPRECHEN ZIE 'MULTIMEDIA'?

“An influential German-language association that annually selects what it deems to be the ‘word of the year’ announced its eagerly awaited pick for 1995 on Dec. 20 – ‘multimedia.’ Choosing a word borrowed from English, the Gesellschaft fur deutsche Sprachgebrauch (Society of German language usage) in Wiesbaden said that the word ‘die Multimedia’ was picked over runner-up ‘das Eurogeld’ (Euromoney) because ‘Multimedia’ had entered virtually all aspects of German life in the past year. ‘It has become a central word in the wonderful new media world,’ the institute said.”

In 1966 the term 'Lightworks' was used to promote Andy Warhol's Exploding. Plastic. Inevitable., a performance that combined live rock music, cinema, experimental lighting and performance art. Following a 'cease-and-desist letter from Goldstein's attorneys, the Warhol camp dropped the use of the word.

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[edit] Irrelevant History?

This section:

By the late 1970's the term Multi-media was used to describe slide presentations that were delivered in time to a sound track. There were several semi-permanent exhibits that presented these multi-projector slide shows with sound. In the early 1980's interactive videodisc applications were more in vogue. These qualify as interactive multimedia because images, text, and sound were employed. Also during this period simple video games became popular. These interactive graphic works did not include digitized audio; rather they used a more simple audio methodology that relied on synthesized "beeps" "boops" and other effects. In the mid 1980's various computer slide show and presentation systems appeared on the market. They relied on simple two, four or sixteen color graphics, and text. Some did support rudimenatry synthesized sound as user feedback. They also utilized the menu driven user interaction, or on occasion a mouse cursor user interface. The Amiga computer was developed with the hardware to support a more modern multimedia experience but appropriate software was not created along with it, and the technology went underutilized. It was during this time that a two-man company, V_Graph Inc developed a DOS based system that used full color digitized images, text, interactivity, and (by converting a phone voice mail circuit board) digitized audio. All the information was stored on the hard drive, but the system would also bring in media elements and scripts from networks or CD-ROMs. By the next year they had speech recognition, videodisc control and other features. It was during a trade show to demonstrate that version when Compton personnel saw their technology. A short time later Compton filed their famous multimedia patent (#5,241,671). That patent was ultimately overturned because of HyperCard, yet the V_Graph system predated HyperCard by some time. V_Graph eventually donated their system to the Smithsonian. Ultimately DOS systems were superceded by Windows based systems. After Microsoft entered the market with PowerPoint competing systems lost market share. Various Mac based systems survived. Macromind became Macromedia and ultimately Adobe providing Flash over the web.

Seems to be more about hypermedia technology more than multimedia. The delivery platform of multimedia technology isn't as relevant as the content or the application. There are thousands of technologies associated with multimedia. But unless it's the very first technology to combine multiple forms of media regardless of platform, I don't think it's relevant. Too much is centered around V_Graph Inc's contribution, which is nowhere near as influential as the pioneers mentioned in this exhibit. It appears to be a self-promotion of V_Graph Inc. I'm considering deleting or at least stripping all the technobabble out of it. But I wanted to get some feedback first. Oicumayberight 01:52, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

-- As the contributor of the "Irrelevant History" section I respectfully disagree that the delivery platform plays an unimportant role. That is unless you want to contend that any admixture of two media is enough to qualify, like singing while dancing. The term "multimedia" has become a term that refers mostly to computer media. One simply has to look at the illustrations on the Multimedia page to see that those very elements were combined into the first multimedia computer whereas they were not combined in the referenced laser show. There is some confusion here, and I suppose it could be solved with a subsection on computer multimedia. The above author noted that my contribution sounded like a "self-promotion" of V_Graph. I suppose it would be more accurate to say that it is an autobiographical expression of my own experiences in the early days. While we were influential we were not 500 lb gorillas. We led the way, only to be run over by a convoy of large companies who learned more from us than we from them. As far as the item being "unverifiable" this is not strictly true, but a little research would be required such as a call to the Smithsonian. It is fair to point out that the referenced artmuseum.net link skipped 1986, which was the year of our work. With all due respect to Mr. Canter - we had a shipping product with full multimedia capabilities at the time he was peddling his software libraries that made slide shows. The key difference was his choice of platform, Apple. We chose DOS PC’s and while the market was theoretically larger the people in that camp were less interested. - Robtmorris - Jan 18, 2007

If it is specific to computer technology, then it's more related to new media or digital media, not multimedia. Computers were a breakthrough in combining media, but that breakthrough was the advent of digital signal processing, long before the most efficient digital codex file formats and data compression technologies were applied. The advent of digital signal processing made it simply a matter of available computer data storage space to convert and combine the multiple forms of media. Since then, there has been a countless number of methods converting and combining media based on that basic breakthrough. V_Graph technologies hardly stand out among them. Oicumayberight 18:21, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree. Computers were not the breakthrough. Computers without software are doorstops. The use of computers to deliver multimedia content was the breakthrough. This allowed existing authors to lower their costs, reproduce their material, and distribute it over networks long before the web. The technology had to exist, true, but using it for this purpose was not obvious at the time. I believe that if one were to examine the record he would see the V_Graph was far ahead of Apple, Amiga, and others in total capabilities. "Standing out" was a matter of PR budget, not fact. - RobtMorris

The only things that make combining multiple forms of media on a computer uniquely special is the efficiency of the data and some levels of interactivity enabled by the computing technology. Levels of interactivity are subjective when it comes to historical citations in the context of multimedia. It's hard to discuss without going too deep into hypermedia and virtual reality.

I don't think computer data efficiency is special enough compared to other media delivery technologies in the context of multimedia. Analog still rivals digital when it comes to resolution. But if efficient data delivery does deserve mention, the breakthroughs were what I listed in my last reply. The first being the digital signal and the next being the file compression. The last one I didn't mention was streaming media. Most of the other delivery technologies don't necessarily require computers. To make this article about computing misses the significance of multimedia. Yes, a large percentage of multimedia is delivered on computers. So is a host of other content that is not multimedia. There are plenty of articles that go in depth about the history of computing, both hardware and software. Even if it is about content, if the technology is not used exclusively to combine forms of media content, the mention belongs in another article like electronic media, recording, digital media, new media or hypermedia.

The only things that are significant to this article regarding the history of multimedia and computers are the first of each combo on the computer (e.g. first use of pictures and sound, first use of motion and sound, first use of interactivity and sound, first use of video and sound, ect). without mentioning dates and pioneers, it's not that impressive to say that the first occurred some unspecific date a in particular decade with the help of some unspecified company. Increased levels of efficiency between the firsts don't deserve mention because there are countless and endless upgrades. Unless V_Graph was the first to combine two forms of media on the computer that have never been combined before, they don't deserve mention in this article before the ones who were the first to combine. Maybe there is a place for their contributions to the history of some other technology article. Multimedia is more of a content development subject than a technology subject. Oicumayberight 01:11, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Firsts. As far as I know V_Graph was the first to combine full color digitized images with digitized audio, all coming from the hard drive and networks. We made our first public presentation on Oct 12, 1986 at the Small Computers in the Arts Network symposium. However the first versions of the animation routines were developed in 1985. We were self-funded and it took some time to pick the hardware and write the software. It all ran in a 640k PC under DOS. We used a Watson Board for audio because there were no "sound blaster" type boards back then. Since the Watson was a phone answering machine we had to modify the audio signal to play on conventional video monitors. We used the AT&T Image Capture board for image capture and playback of image sequences. (This was before AT&T even had slide show software for their own hardware.) We also had sprite animation, video overlay, text, and interactive branching via menus and mouse input. All of this was before hypercard (which was black and white and had no sound). It was before the Amiga had software to run the hardware, and the rest of the PC world was doing 4 and 16 color graphics in low res with "beep and boop" audio. RobtMorris

If it is true that V_Graph was the first to combine images with sound, compare that to Phonofilm in 1919 and Technicolor in 1922. The only difference is digitization. So what does digitization get us? Since the resolution was inferior to film until the last decade, the main thing digitization gets us is delivery efficiency and portability. These are advances in computing and electronic media delivery, not advances in multimedia. Again, multimedia is about content more than technology.

The only other thing digitization does is allow for media to be presented on the computer, which is only important when considering the interactivity that comes with computing. This also has to compare to the pioneering Aspen Movie Map to be fair. Oicumayberight 22:32, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Digitization allows for interactivity. It is useful to note that because the material could be stored on standard hard drives we could (and did) put digital interactive media on networks for the first time. It took at least 10 years for the same thing to be done poorly over the web.

Putting a multimedia project onto a computer's hard drive (or network) brought down the cost by 2 orders of magnitude. That is significant to anyone who wants to create an interactive work. Combining the right technologies with an "easy to use" authoring system like ours was intended to free the creative power of individuals who would be able to express their ideas as experiences for others without raising half a million to do it. That kind of "democratizing" is quite different than what Technicolor was doing, or what Phonofilm did because those technologies were reserved for a few well-financed film makers.

We also proved the concept of using computers in this way and helped to usher in the era of desktop video. Don't forget we called it VirtualVideo at the time because the term multimedia was used for other things. "The Drive through Aspen" (Peace River Films and MIT Machine Architecture Lab [now the Media Lab]} could have been done on our system. I don't remember that project having any sound, however. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by RobtMorris 06:30, 20 January 2007 (UTC).

Increasing efficiency, lowering cost, increasing quality, increasing accuracy, faster processing, faster delivery, are all evolutionary changes. Being the first to invent a new tool that changes the course of history is revolutionary. It's not the same as being the next to improve a tool, evolutionary. What's needed in the history section of this article is not a list of evolutionary changes, but of revolutionary changes. There are hundreds if not thousands of evolutionary changes to any particular technology in a decade. Revolutionary changes to a technology only happen one or two times per decade. See what I'm getting at here? Oicumayberight 07:04, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

What is Revolutionary? Increasing efficiency, lowering cost, faster delivery, democratizing content development, and adding sound with full color images all in one step combined to make VirtualVideo a quantum leap in the history of multimedia. Then add distribution over networks and VirtualVideo became a broadcast medium too. No one else was doing this in 1986. Videodisc, DV-I, and 4 color "demo disks" didn't run over networks. It only took two sticks to make fire. The sticks were not new, and the desire for heat was not new. What was new was putting them together in the way that made fire. So was making fire revolutionary? Most would say yes.

I think the problem we have here is that there was no herd of reporters writing about a misunderstood product from a self-funded two man company therefore it is difficult to confirm what I have said. At the time reporters I contacted would not write about us because I could not provide a list of VC's who had invested (talk about a gateing factor). Just to provide an example about how resistant some are to new ideas: In 1991 I had a hour long argument with an editor from PCWeek who refused to write about our software because he wanted to crush the very idea of Computerized Multimedia - he thought it to be a huge waste of time. That is why it would be useful to contact the Smithsonian for information on our gift (deed of gift # 22854).

The Compton Multimedia patent (5,241,671) was filed on October 26, 1989 over two years after we announced our system. We were in the same trade show exhibit hall three months before they filed, and they visited our booth! We did not file. They did and got a patent because the USPTO thought their work to be novel, and useful. If there's was then so was ours only ours was first. RobtMorris 10:35 20 Jan 2007

The advances in this exhibit are revolutionary. Revolutionary is new functions for the user, not just improved quality in the existing functions. Technology with no new purpose other than improving the quality of existing technology is evolutionary, not revolutionary. It should be reserved for advances in multimedia, not digital media or it's patents. This is not about Macromedia. This is not a courtroom to prove if V_Graph technology was stolen. This article is about methods and uses for combining forms of media, not about improving the signal quality of media anyway. I'm removing this irrelevant section. Oicumayberight 20:18, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

"This article is about methods and uses for combining forms of media" - That is exactly what our authoring system did. Authoring systems are made so users could make their own presentations - it was a method for combining forms of media. Our authoring system, VirtualVideo, was the first to combine full color images with digital audio. Anyone could use it to express their creativity. By doing this we brought down the cost of creating interactive digital multimedia by a factor of 100. This democratized the medium. (Another revolutionary point BTW). By referring again to that time line you show that you think Director (released in 1988) was revolutionary, but our authoring system (which did more and was released in 1986) was not. Clearly the facts are not important to you. By deleting my entry you only serve to promote a fiction, distort history, and please yourself. Robt Morris 16:23, 13 February 2007 (UTC).

Your the one using the article to promote your company. Don't accuse me of pleasing myself. I'm trying to keep this article neutral. If we were to list the history of every method of combining media throughout history as they developed, the article would be as big as all of the articles on the wikipedia combined. That's why only the revolutionary firsts should be listed if any.

As for the Director, nobody mentioned it in this article, because this article is not about technology. The timeline article only mentioned it because it was about Marc Canter, founder of MacroMind, as a highly recognized multimedia pioneer. It mention SoundWorks as having introduced multimedia production to the personal computer. That appears to be a mistake as the software was called MusicWorks. I only mentioned the timeline on this discussion page as an example of what is notable. A google search on "MacroMind" or "Marc Canter" will yield 100x the hits that "V_Graph" yields, and yet neither "MacroMind" or "Marc Canter" are listed in the article. Oicumayberight 20:07, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I am not trying to promote my company. If anything, the fact that we made the first system and did NOT become rich and famous is embarrassing. I am just trying to keep the record straight. The facts are not about PR, or about hits on Google, as you seem to imply. What is notable, important, the point of the article etc. seems to change as I deal with each point. Clearly you feel you are some kind of gatekeeper who is trying to keep spam off the article. That is a valid position to take, and I respect that. However there is a point where you are also denying the facts to suit your point of view. I put the information up hoping it would be improved beyond by abilities. I did not expect to be accused of some kind of malpractice because I was trying to increase the knowledge base. BTW: Musicworks was not multimedia because it only dealt with sound. That is one medium. Robt Morris —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Robtmorris (talk • contribs) 21:56, 13 February 2007 (UTC).

If you got ripped off, my sympathies. Still, multimedia is not the subject matter, nor is wikipedia the place to win back credit if credit was stolen. And BTW, I'm not defending everything in the multimedia timeline as accurate. I merely posted it as some (not all) examples of revolutionary developments in multimedia. If they are referring to music alone as multimedia, they are making the common mistake of referring to digital media as multimedia, just as you are. Oicumayberight 23:21, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

"Multimedia is not the subject matter"? Clearly there is a large disconnect here. Similarly your statement that "the common mistake of referring to digital media as multimedia" is not accurate. Digital music is not multimedia because music is a single medium. The digital multimedia computer, authoring system, and projects we created are part of (as in subset of) the larger world of multimedia because we combined a variety of media including all the elements listed at the top of the multimedia page. Being digital does not disqualify our work. Anyone who reads the multimedia page associated with this discussion sees a lot of information about digital multimedia. Responses like the ones quoted above raise doubts about the "objective" nature of your argument. Robtmorris

Now you are just obfuscating the debate. I never mentioned digital music, you did. I mention digital media, which may or may not be combined to form "multimedia". My statement about the common mistake is accurate. The Marc Canter article you cited was an example. People often refer to a single form of media such as audio alone or video alone as multimedia. Electronic media, new media, "interactivity" have also been labeled multimedia even when multiple forms were not combined. They can all be a subset of multimedia when combined, but are not technically multimedia until they are combined. Even when they are combined, advancement to the individual forms rather than the art of combining the forms is not relevant to multimedia as much as they are relevant to the individual forms. That's why all the individual forms (text, audio, graphics, animation, video, interactivity) have there own articles. If you are talking about the quality of digital media, it's not a multimedia topic.

There are thousands of authoring systems that can combine forms of media. Yours was not the first even if it was one of the first to combine that enhanced level of digital media. Yes, most modern media is digital media even if it is ultimately printed. That doesn't mean any enhancement of digital media should be noted in every article that uses digital media. Wikipedia uses digital media in every article.

Why don't you just start an article on V_Graph if you think it's noteworthy? You can even add it to the multimedia category page. Oicumayberight 22:20, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV?

Now Oicumayberight has decided to remove references for an article that needs some. (One to a published series of books, another to the patent office, and a third to the Smithsonian.) Then he deleted my contributions based on false claims. One can only wonder why. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by RobtMorris (talk • contribs).

Seeing as how you are connected to V_Graph and seem to be steering the history section towards giving V_Graph most of the credit for shaping the course of multimedia history, I doubt that your intentions are anything less than biased self-promotion. Oicumayberight 00:19, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

All the material I submitted is factually correct. I do not intend to give V_Graph credit for shaping the course of multimedia history. V_Graph was a small player, especially in terms of making money in the field. However V_G did make real contributions and was first to market. I mention many other companies and make their roles as clear as V_G's. All I am doing is making the record known, and providing references to back it up. If you want to edit the material to improve it and make it more "objective" by all means go for it. RobtMorris 9 Feb 2007

There is no point in editing it. It needs to be removed. It is about a small contribution to enhance the quality of digital media. V_Graph was not the first to market "multimedia". Multimedia was marketed long before the term was coined and long before it was digital. Oicumayberight 21:19, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

If you are so convinced that multimedia and "digital media" are different why does the section "Usage in Various Fields and Areas" cover digital multimedia? Also I agree with your second point: we marketed VirtualVideo before the term multimedia was applied to computer multimedia. You seem to want to equate the size of the contribution with the amount of money it generated. I suggest you reconsider this equation. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by RobtMorris (talk • contribs).

Digital multimedia was directed to this page over 2 years ago, for good reason. "Digital multimedia" is a subcategory of multimedia because multimedia may use both analog and digitally encoded media. As I mention before, digitally encoded media was not a big advancement in the quality of multimedia until the quality was able to efficiently match analog within the last decade. That didn't happen with one breakthrough in digital media technology. It was a combination of ongoing improvements in data compression technology, available computer data storage, microprocessor speed, input devices, and electronic display technology. Combining forms of media on the computer wasn't the breakthrough to combining forms of media. The breakthrough was sound-on-film. The first interactive animation was Tennis for Two. The first to add interactivity to film was the Aspen Movie Map. The first high quality video and sound in an interactive game was Dragon's Lair. The only thing that improved the quality of multimedia in the following decade was the interactivity in virtual reality and video games. Graphics and sound lagged Dragon's layer until video game real-time rendering improved in the late 1980s.

Multimedia is about the design and quality of the content more than the technology to combine and deliver that content. There is no doubt that technology plays a role in enabling the combining and delivery. However, the only technology that should be considered a breakthrough in multimedia would be the first to combine or deliver multiple forms of media in a way that wasn't achieved before. The rest is just levels of improvement. The movie projector article doesn't list improvements of light bulb technology. The home entertainment system article doesn't list improvements of the woofer. Why then should improvements of digital media technology be listed in the multimedia article? If we were to list every analog or digital electronic media technology improvement since the first, the article would be so saturated with technology, that content and the art of combining forms of content would be a footnote. And it's not just electronic. There were advances in traditional art media that have enhanced the quality of multimedia as well. There are plenty of other articles on wikipedia where the technology and technique advancements are more relevant. Oicumayberight 20:27, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Our advancements 1)from 4 color graphics to 32,000 color digital images were akin to going from black and white to color. 2)from digital beeps and boops to digital audio recording to and from the hard drive was like adding sound to film. These were not trivial, and doing both in one step was similarly non-trivial; that the applications could run over network as also groundbreaking. All this were done in 1986 on mouseless DOS based 4mhz 8086 PC's with 640K of memory and 5 meg hard drives, so your contention that it was a matter of compression, processor speed and storage are (with all due respect) off the mark. We played the output on standard video monitors. (BTW-Dragon's Lair was a videodisk-based game. That was why the sound and images were so good; i.e. they were analogue.) Robtmorris 11 Feb 2007

Again, advances in digital media, not multimedia. You've only described signal processing enhancement of digital media. Again, not the first time sound and video were combined on the computer. Not an enhancement of any of the hardware: computer data storage, microprocessor speed, input devices, and electronic display that was required to match what was done before without the use of digital media. Oicumayberight 23:58, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

If you can point me to an earlier example of full color interactive digital multimedia with sound that could be distributed over computer networks I would appreciate it. Robt Morris 12 Feb 2007

Unless you are talking about new levels of interactivity such as multi-user online, portability of multimedia is not the issue. If someone wants to carry it around on CD-ROM, LaserDisc, ship it on a truck, or ship it on the space shuttle, it's about portability (product distribution) and is not relevant to multimedia. Oicumayberight 20:31, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes our system would work from a central network file server using a player on a local machine. That player could load a script from the server and that script would in turn direct the player to load image/audio/text files from the server on demand. The system could accomodate as many nodes as the network supported. Robt Morris Feb 13 2007. Robt Morris 16:23, 13 February 2007 (UTC).

That wasn't a new level of interactivity. That was just another method of delivery. The server isn't relevant to combining forms of media unless it enabled a level of multimedia interactivity that wasn't possible before, like a MUD which led to MMORPG. Oicumayberight 20:29, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

You should not be so certain in the conclusions to which you jump. Our system had internal variables and evolved into including DBASEII support. That information could also have been stored on the server and been the catalyst for different experiences by other users. Such a use would have been determined by the users of the Authoring System. Robt Morris Feb 13, 2007 Robtmorris (talk • contribs) 22:01, 13 February 2007 (UTC).

Multi-user access to a network is not the same thing as MUD. And MUD predates V_Graph anyway. Oicumayberight 23:26, 13 February 2007 (UTC)