English

BARNUM-TRONICS, a grand declaration of intent

(Referring to the enclosed .pdf file.) This was in the Swarthmore Alumni Bulletin, December 1970. Note that it was published before ANY personal computers became available. It is a declaration of the great computer systems I thought I was going to do-- - Xanadu hypertext, with visible connections. (I believe the illustration was the first publication explicitly showing visible connections between pages on a computer screen.) - CGI-- the system I called Fantasm, which I worked on for a decade. I believe I was the first to predict "realistic pseudo-photography by computer". See enclosed summary, from either 1965 or 1967 SMPTE meeting. (Enclosed .png file.) (The strange illustration at the beginning is a hardware design from my patent application). - Cinenym, a movie editing system (I had applied for a patent several years earlier, but had to abandon it). This publication preceded ALL personal computers. (The Altair came out in 1974, the Apple II in 1976, the IBM PC in 1981.) Nevertheless, the article predicts that "later in the seventies it should be possible to outfit an entire college campus, for example, for a few thousand dollars per console."

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