Multimedia



	A brief history of "Multimedia," From My Perspective by Richard W. Herzfeld This paper describes my experiences in the late seventies and early eighties, as they relate to today's multimedia products, when I was a public relations practitioner during the "High Tech" era in Boston. Having both retired and moved twice during the past two and one-half years (2005-2008), nearly all of my documentation has been thrown out, so what follows are somewhat accurate memories. In the beginning . . . At the heart of the sophisticated product/systems that we know today as "multimedia" are many products with which I was closely associated. As an employee, and then owner of a Public Relations firm in the Boston area from 1977-1986, and then in Milwaukee through 2006, several clients with whom I worked were at the forefront of what has become known today as multimedia; it was my task to promote these products, to attract the inquiries that could generate product sales. Many current users of multimedia would be astonished to learn that as recently as 1990, another of my former clients, the Fortune 50 Johnson Controls Inc., was using a sophisticated "multimedia" system consisting of multiple, synchronized slide projectors and tape recorders to provide exciting, integrated video presentations. Color terminals Even if the size and cost of computers had not dropped as drastically as they have during the past 27 years, I believe a refined multimedia technology would exist, similar to what it is today, simply not on the desktop. Many of the underlying technologies were already under development in the late seventies and early eighties. When examining the origins and development of the issues surrounding the use of computers to author, develop, deliver, and present computer-based multimedia content, I would predict that the least obvious of these, to today's practitioners, would have to be the color monitors/screens on today's computers. The lead item in many computer and electronics publications for a time in the mid-eighties, was the introduction of `color' monitors. This was exciting, for until the mid-to late 1980s, color computer graphics hardware was expensive and based on raster graphics. In the late 1970s, a San Diego client of ours, the Megatek Corporation, was producing one of the finest vector color terminals on the market. Among it's few competitors were Tektronix and Evans & Sutherland. Color `Terminals,' as they were known, cost in excess of $25,000.00, and provided high speed, 3D graphics for engineering and



	science applications. They were attached to mainframe computers and the then emerging 32-bit "super" minis, introduced by companies like Perkin Elmer Interdata, a subsidiary of Perkin Elmer (PE) Data Systems, another of our clients. Interdata developed one of the first 32 bit minicomputers, also used primarily in scientific, military, and the day's CAD (Computer Aided Design) systems. I doubt if the term CAD/CAM (Computer Aided Design/Computer Aided Manufacturing) had yet emerged from the conceptual arenas. It was the black and green or black and orange screens with which ordinary computer users were familiar, whether for the 3rd Generation IBM 360, or the just emerging newest generation of machines such as the Commodore PET, Atari 8-bit family, Apple II, and Tandy TRS-80s, and various CP/M machines. But, in the mid-eighties a number of companies introduced color monitors selling for as little as $500.00. This, as well as most other progress made since 1965 in what we refer to as the technology industries, is the result of the amazing progress made in the fabrication of integrated circuits (ICs). Originally referred to simply as ICs, soon there was MSI (Medium scale integration), then LSI (Large Scale Integration), and finally XLSI (Extra Large Scale Integration). During that period, silicon fabrication went from a few thousand, to billions of transistors1 on a single chip and the chips were no longer single purpose, but complete microprocessor systems. ¹Early image manipulation During the 1960s, at the University of Southern California's computer graphics labs, the primary analysis of the Kennedy Assassination Tapes had taken place. These were paramount in the `definitive' determination that there had been only one shooter in the Book Depository window. In 1977, the professor in charge of that Southern Cal department founded a company to sell a `graphics' computer he had developed. The computer was targeted at advertising firms, movie studios, specifically, and any other industries that dealt with still and motion pictures. Since our organization had earned the reputation as one of the leading "high-tech" PR firms in Boston at the time, and since I was most familiar with computer technology, having been a programmer, analyst, and Data Processing Manager, I visited with the Professor in early 1978 to develop a marketing and promotional strategy for his new photo manipulation tool.



	From that experience, he had developed this computer. He demonstrated to me not only the "proofs" they'd arrived at from the Kennedy shooting, but also dramatic demonstrations (for that time) of entering still pictures and 8mm film, and manipulating the images, such as removing a telephone from a table, or inserting a cigarette in a woman's hand something we can do today on any desktop or laptop computer. That single purpose computer was the size of a standard size desk. Almost 12 years later, when I met with representatives of Silicon Graphics (SGI), which was becoming became a major player in the movie animation industry, I believe I was told the professor's patents were licensed by SGI. Presentation Software Sometime in 1983, not long after the introduction of the IBM-PC, we were asked to promote an exciting new graphical presentation product for the new personal computer. VCN ExecuVision was developed by Visual Communications Networks, which consisted of a group of professors and students in an MIT Department involved with computer graphics. There were programs available at the time for making charts and graphs on the various desktop computers, but this was the forerunner of products like PowerPoint, in that it presented users with the capability to scan photographs (expensive), or develop graphics, including simplistic drawings or graphs and charts, and to then present them on the computer in vivid color. According to the program authors, H. Toong and A. Gupta, "VCN ExecuVision was the first Presentation program for the personal computer. This program allowed users the ability to manipulate graphics and text not just for business data, but for all communication purposes.² Finally, true multimedia Authoring Software By 1982, laser applications were emerging in many scientific fields. Even earlier, in the late seventies, companies like Pioneer and RCA offered the equipment, and produced the approximate 14-inch-diameters laser discs having movies and other video material. Many saw great promise in this new technology. C.M. Goldstein had great optimism for the medium: "The optical video disk, spawned by the home entertainment industry, and its counterpart, the optical digital disk, both hold great promise for information storage and retrieval and the scientific enterprise."3



	About this time, LaserDisc, Inc.4 , a company that had developed authoring software for the nascent optical video disc contacted me. Its breakthrough authoring software would be the first to enable the encoding of digital information, along with video, on video laserdiscs. Further, Like today's DVDs, the information could be accessed randomly. But even more exciting at the time, it enabled an interactive component with the viewer. The company's Bartender Training demonstration produced by the company, showed how others could develop interactive teaching tools. The Bartender disk would 1) first present a lesson explaining how to mix specific drinks; 2) then request the student to describe the contents and proper preparation of a drink, while the video paused; 3) it then reviewed the student's responses; 4) finally, it congratulated the student on the correct response and moved onto the next lesson, or; 5) it indicated a wrong answer and reran the previous lesson. The company imagined this technology tool as an individualized teaching station for many occupations or education settings, such as foreign languages. Remote displays In 1986, as I prepared to move back to Milwaukee from Boston, I was requested to present a Public Relations and Marketing proposal to PicTel Corporation, located about 30 miles north of Boston, in Danvers, Mass. It had developed one of the first functional Picture Phones. But it wasn't targeted simply at telephone conversations, for the company knew the market for such a product would be too small to justify its investments. It was intended for interactive use by groups of people remote to each other. A speaker in New York, for instance, might be connected to audiences in Boston, Philadelphia, and Dallas. He could respond to questions from all locations. And, his graphic presentations could also be displayed in all locations. While not true multimedia, technologies like PicTel's certainly advanced the concepts of multimedia. Summary This paper has reviewed the important design, technology, and software issues leading to the development of multimedia during the 1970s through the 1980s. From individual hardware and software products, including multimedia authoring software, it has shown the step-by-step progress of various products that underlie current multimedia technology. # # #



	(Endnotes) 1 Moore's Law. The term Moore's Law was coined by Carver Mead around 1970.[4] Moore's original statement can be found in his publication "Cramming more components onto integrated circuits", Electronics Magazine 19 April 1965; http://www.intel.com/technology/mooreslaw/index.htm Toong, H.-M.D. and Gupta, A. (1985). "A new direction in personal computer software". THE INSTITUTE OF ELECTRICAL AND ELECTRONICS ENGINEERS 72 (3). 2 Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VCN_ExecuVision" 3 Optical disk technology and information CM Goldstein The optical video disk, spawned by the home entertainment industry, and its counterpart, the optical digital disk, both hold great promise for information storage and retrieval and the scientific enterprise. Optical digital disks for computer mass storage are currently under development by many firms. In addition, efforts are under way to allow encoding of digital information on video disks. This is desirable as an inexpensive publication medium for machine-readable data as well as a means of obtaining both video and digital information on one disk. Potential applications of this technology include inexpensive on-line storage, random access graphics to complement on-line information systems, hybrid network architectures, office automation systems, and archival storage. Science 8 October 1982:Vol. 218. no. 4568, pp. 115 - 121DOI: 10.1126/science.218.4568.115 http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/218/4568 /115?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&minscore=5000&resourcetype=HWCIT 4 I believe LaserDisc, Inc. is the correct name, though today it refers to a company selling the video and music discs.