Imagine yourself in a world where software processes determine every aspect of yout existence:-:what you think, where you go, . ether" you live or die.
lm�gjn at, each J;>r'Ogram jn t!Jls com;r>�:�t . dd 'IS� tt1e alter, ego of some human pro-grammer in another dimension. Imagine a world •
in which viae,o games are live battles, where file manipulation is behavior control-where simulation Is reality ..
Some might argue that we are already ap�roaching such a world.
Computers -ar:e taking more and more tumctl.ons away from hur:nan operatoF� in the factory, in tMe marketplace and an the battlefield. · It's becoming hard to tell where human supervision ceases and where cemputer control begins.
But there's still room to fantasize about what really goes on inside
the processor-minds of our computer colleagues. Can they outthink ·us?. Do they ever wonder aBO!Jt
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movie audiences the chance to where he won four. Clio :awards fer ponder these questions when a excellence in �elevlsion '
futuristic adventure film, Tron, Is commercial production.
released next month. Tron portrays The film's director Is Steven computers in JWo aornaln,s: 1111 a Lisberger, wllo is making his large communications company in debut as a live-action director.
the real world and in a micro- The idea for Tron came from his civilization existing within the fascination with video games. The electronic clreuitry of a computer. film stars Jeff Bridges, David
Even more significant than the Warner, Bruce Boxleitner and subject matter is the computer Cindy Morgan.
technology used in l:)rodueing the The story begjns wMerr a young film. The animation and eero,puter- compt;lter expert and video arcade generated sceflery for the film are athlete decides to take on a large the most advanced ever used In a computer corfi>oration he suspects commercial motton picture. Live of so�tware piracy.. A menacing actors are merged with computer control program gets In his way, graphics in a technique being however, and he finds himself in touted by Oislley as a milestone in an electronic domain in which he
optical and light effects. The film must figJ;l� battles en a brutal video has been in post-preduction game grid.
special effects processin9 for It is in this surrealistic computer:
over a year. dimension that the digital scene
Tf:le comfi)aRv:r;eSfilOOsibl� .f.oF sim.wla�iefl r.ecdl� shi'nes. One third producing the
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ajority al the of the backgrounds are computer-computer animation is I nformation generated, requiring that each Inter-national Inc. (1.1.1.), Culver artificial landscape be properly City, CA. 1.1.1. has been involved joined with the live-action frames.with digital simulation for motion "The entire film uses backlighting, pictures for several years, having not reflected light, " explained recorded major scenes in s�:�ch Taylor. "As a result, each feature films as futtJreworld, and it. character is made out of pure has a $3 million facility deVoted to · light." Multiple camera passes,
· scene simulation technology. anywhere from 1 2 to 20, are Rlc�rd Tay,lolit Gjire�t,g��f the .• : , . . made .. to create � hlgh-cont:rrast company's cligital scene ·simulation' irrlage. Color �els are used in a division, oversees the design and , process Taylor likens to "painting
programming of computer by number. " Between 5 million animation in Tr:Qn. )'The fitrtL w.lll and 75 million calculations are make computer: simulaflon a required to create one frame of household word,'' he says animation. It can take from 1 5 enthusiastically. "The animation is minutes to an hour to create a hypRotic. It has a �erfeetness that i(l.. frame; Consider:ing that 1 ,240 communicates subliminally to the frames make up one minute of audience." Before joining this film, this gives some idea about firm, Taylor was e�tive director the complexit¥ of the task.
for Robert Abel ana AssGeiates, . r;:• · . 1.1:1. has developed a f.er:Jr-stage'·
process for devi:liQplng simulatioR scenes for films and television commercials. The first stage Is design, which involves coming up with an idea and creatlr:�g a story
board. The next phase is data entry, which can be done in one of three ways. The most prevalent is encoding by hand, whereby tMe designer generates two orthogonal views of a scel"'e, then uses three cursors to encode poif!ts in thr�e
dirneAsional space. 'A. second method, used for well-behaved geometric shapes, is algorithmic, or mathematical descriptior:l. The ttlird technigue Is picture scanning, which is used to add texture to three-dimens.ional surfaces.
·After all the' data describing a scene has been enter:ea into the
computer, 1.1.1. uses its proprietary Director's Language to further sJi)ecify the image. Size, c,;olor,, ortenfation, ·lighting, reflections. · and textures can be easily manlr:>ulated with this .interactive language. All the scene characteF
istics a studio product�on company would normally use on a set are accessible with Director:'s Language. The tourttl ar:1d final stage of the simulation process is filming, which uses a high
lie�olution el�ctronic iB\l�gimg camera in conjunction with a precision graphics recorder.
The main computer used is a · Poonley F-1 , wtlich Taylor describes as a ''souped-up"
PDP-1 0. An auxiliary high-speed, 36-bit computer with 51 2 bytes of memory available gives the system its 'high performance. This
computer is 1 0 times faster than the PDP-1 0. Other har:aware maki.Flg up trne image. proeesslng
�ystem includes two pr6gtammable film readers, a 40rin .• by 60-fn.
T aylo.s graphics tall let and vartous display monitors. ·
Ma�l. Inc., E�msford, NY, which Is assisting 1.1.1. IR Ute simulation for Tron, uses a Perkin Elmer 3240 computer wlt�2M bytes of memory and two.S.O.M·byte disk ddves. A<Celc:.:o C OQ' computer gel'lerate agl's · pictures on a monitor.
Concerning tl'le futur-e of computer anlmatton in the film Industry, Taylor predicts further iiTiprovemeAt of ttl� man/machine interface to .ent:nin�:a. director!s . ability to control a scene. "Most • simulation systems Jil'en't
sufficiently user-oriented at this time," he said. ''Tbere needs to be refinement of hands--on control of the computer."
He also foresees�the need for increased computational abfllty to get more realistic imagery and movement. One area that would benefit from greater processing speeds would t>e the simulation of the human f,orm. :At this point, stylized human beings oan be
created for medium
' Of
lomg ahotf.but a realistic elose�up portrait of the human face-coll)plete with hairs and pores-is peyond the power of computer simulation.
Taylor feels It will be 1 0 years before this challenge Is met.
Aside from the movie's superb graphics and special effects, Tron Is likely to attract throngs of first·
time and repeat viewers because of its subject matter ... vldeo games. Video arcade games took in about $5 billion In revenue last year, aMd their popularity is still growing. Ironically. tl'le most successful video game, Space Invaders, grosses $600 million each year, three times the income af the most sucee�ft:d movie In hist.ory, Star Wa hat fact Is obviously not .los Bal y,
. Manufacturing, tn� atlon's largest video arcade game· maker, who have Introduced a Tron video game and will be placing the game in theaters showing the movie.
Meanwhile, Disney accountants will undoubtedly be"'scr:utlnlzlng ·� '
boxoffice returns, -in the hope that' computer technolpgy will emerge as the next selena� fiction formula .
to-challenge the_ asttonomical
Star Wars grosses. D _
Invisible or Invincible?
It all depends on your perspective.
The Vision 80© is a video display card that gives your Apple ™ terminal an ind ustry
stand a rd 80 column by 24 line display screen w ith a. full 1 2 8 character set in
cluding u pper and lower case letters with three dot descenders. It is compat
ible w ith all existin g Apple™ BAS I C software a n d allows t h e u s e of 80 column lower case text w ith pro
grams written in BAS I C , FORTRAN P a s c a l , M i c r o s oft C P/ M ™ a n d ASSEM BLER. Full commu nications driver support allows the Apple 11™
to operate as an intelligent terminal
Definitely invinci�le. Ask Softal k m a g a z i ne e d it o r s , w h o rated Vision 80© the Best Apple
v i d e o dis p l a y c a r d o n t h e market .
But the Vision 80© card has an
"Apple" command vocabulary including H-tab, V-tab, HOME, T E X T , P R # G R A P H I C S ) .
No changes i n o peratin g or programming procedures are necessa ry to p roduce what
ever sophisticated displays you require.
And it doesn 't interfere with the operation of popular Apple rM com pati ble
peripher-a l s . Except for the en hperipher-anced displperipher-ay, it' s as if you had never instal led the Vision 80© in your
Apple 1 1™ com puter.
Definitely invisible.
Ask your local com puter dealer for a demonstration of the invincible, i n v i s i b l e V i s i o n 8 0 © v i d e o d isplay card b y Vista Computer C o m p a n y . Or correspond with us d i re ct l y : V i sta C o m p uter C o m p a n y , I n c . 1 3 1 7 Ea st E d i n g e r , S a n t a A n a C A 9 2 7 0 5 , ( 7 1 4) 9 5 3-0 5 2 3 . T o l l f r e e o r d e r l i n e : (800) 8 54-80 1 7 .
Be sure to inquire about our new Vision 40, a softscreen program
mable character generator for Apple WM computers. It 's great for graphics and perfect for foreign language applications.
Perceptive Perspective Vlst
COMPUTER COMPANY. INC.... :a ..._
___1 31 7 East Edinger • Santa Ana. CA 92705
71 4-953-0523 800-854-801 7
© 1 98 1 Vista Computer Co., Inc. CIRCLE INQUIRY NO. 74
Apple and Apple I I are trademarks of Apple Computer I nc. CP/M is a trademark of Digital Research Inc.
SPELLING
PROGRAMS=
by Dona Z. Meilach
You've just finished composing a document. It's been proofread, printed and set aside. An hour later, you reread it and discover two typos and a possible misspelled word, despite the number of times you 'checked it.
Wouldn't it be great if a process existed to make every finished piece perfect before it's finalized? What if misspelled words could be instantly corrected via computer technology?
Recently, several proofreading programs have appeared on the market.
While it's not yet advisable to throw your dictionary away, these programs do catch many mistakes that might otherwise slip by.
We recently checked 1 0 widely advertised programs guaranteed to banish spelling woes. Only seven are detailed in the accompanying charts; three weren't included for varying reasons.
SpeiiStar Version 1 .0 (Micropro, San Rafael, CA) had a hangup at the 9,000th word of its 20,000-word dictionary. A telephone consultation with the company indicated a problem with this new offering that is expected to be corrected soon. We know of other users who had success with SpeiiStar, but we were unable to document it for this survey and plan to present it at a later date.
Hexspell (Hexagon Systems, Vancouver, BC, Canada) provided a version that could not deal with capital letters, which were all we had on the TRS-80 test unit. The system ignored all upper case letters to "save unnecessary word checks, such as names addresses, etc." This also meant it ignored the first word of every sentence. We felt this was an unnecessary limitation that none of the other programs had, so we chose to delete it from the testing. An updated version did not arrive by our press deadline.
Miz'Spell (Programs Unlimited, Jericho, NY) required configuring data that was not clearly understandable in our manuals. A call to both Zobex (the computer) and Zenith (the terminal) did not reveal the required figures. An inquiry to the software company went unanswered. The configuration requests on the terminal were a surprise, resulting in 3% wasted hours, and considerable frustration. The ad states, "Miz'Spell permits user configuration, including specification of default extensions for original and correct text file."
" Permits," made to sound like an advantage, was a dismal drawback. The ad also maintains that it will work with words of any length, but the manual states that it is slow with two- or three-letter words and suggests that the user work with words of four or more letters. The program doesn't seem to be worth its
$49.95 low price.
It did make us aware that when programs need to be installed with data that most new users will not be able to find, the program is a failure before it begins. It also pointed out the importance of understanding the features of a program to evaluate advertising claims.
Generally, the seven reviewed programs are clever-even brilliant. But they are not a substitute for proofreading and knowing how to spell. None of
the systems can guess what you mean. If you mistyped the word sin as sign, sine or sing, it would not flag it as a wrong word because all the "typos" are valid words.
However if you needed to know both ways to spell sine or sign, some systems would help, and save you the trouble of thumbing through a dictionary.
Manuals and/or on-screen examples ran the gamut from quite good to near-impossible. All had some difficult or ambiguous areas, or sections where directives were not covered. We have indicated them in degrees of
"Adequate + or - ." Only Spellguard had the foresight to include an index at the back of the manual for an easy reference and a summary of the procedure in the
front of the book where it could be readily located. The index would have been a substantial help for wading through the wordy Microproof manual.
Several of the programs provide on-screen test documents that lead you through the procedures with an accompanying explanation in the manual. Be prepared to spend a minimum of two to three hours familiarizing yourself with a program.
It is hard to appreciate what happens with a program unless you work with it using your own files. But knowing the existing features in advance can help to evaluate their effectiveness. You may like to use all the features of an involved program for long documents, while a simpler system may be a time saver for short business letters. Ideally, one might own two programs to use for different documents . . . and to proofread one against all others. Some programs will do more than you want
taking excessive time-if you can't elect to bypass procedures. More is not necessarily better.
Comparing programs for accuracy is difficult because they work differently. We subjected each program to identical manuscripts, and incorrectly spelled words were usually listed as suspect, though not necessarily all of them. Many correct words were suspect. Why?
The systems dealt differently with hyphenated words, plurals, abbreviated street names, and numerals such as 3rd and 5th. One system that lists words ending in
"ed" missed the typo "guaranteeds. " It didn't go far enough to find the s. Another program found it without any problem but missed something else.
Generally, the programs caught words we had missed completely-those we overlooked or did not know how to spell. They can catch other nuances, too.
We ran a manuscript through one program with the name of Mr. Minamizawa. When the error listing appeared, I discovered I had spelled his name three different ways.
If you're not sure of rules regarding the use of ly, ed, ies or when to drop the e, the spelling programs providing look-up help can save you time and frustration.
The trade-off is that the more dic
tionary there is to read against, the longer it will take for a document to be proofed. We used the first 325 words of this
manuscript with 1 0 words purposely misspelled and ran the sample through the seven programs. The results are displayed in chart 1 .
Bear in mind the difference between the TRS-80 5 % -in. disks and the 8-in. CP/M systems.
Note that speed refers to the time needed to read the document only, not to correct it. Different types of systems require different procedures; comparing one against another, timewise, is like comparing oranges and potatoes. Disk swapping, finding and replacing time will depend on the user. MicroSpell's reading and correcting can be simultaneous, so timing it against the others is an unfair comparison. The Word was the slowest for straight proofreading, then reviewing, then marking and correcting, but its other features and low price make it attractive.
The longer the document, the longer it will take for a reading. But short documents will not necessarily require too much less time. Why? Because all words must be read against the entire dictionary. The minimum time for reading through the dictionary will always remain the same regardless of document length.
Essentially, most systems provide a dictionary ranging from 1 0,000 to 50,000 frequently-used words. The program reads a document and rearranges the words so it can match them to its dictionary. Any words in the document that do not match the dictionary are suspect.
They may not all be misspelled; some may be technical words, abbreviations, proper names, street names.
These will appear and need to be dealt with.
Generally, your decisions involve the following (though the wordings and potential directives vary) correct the word; mark it; ignore it; add it to a dictionary;
help; exit to system.
Additionally, some will allow you to: preview the list on the screen or printer; look up the possibilities for
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the correct spelling of a word; see the word in context;
have a total word count; check word frequency (often referred to as "unique words"). This indicates how many different words you used in the entire manuscript and reveals the extent of your vocabulary.
Also some systems will allow you to print the error word list as hard copy and/or list it on the screen.
Proofreader and The Word have modular procedures, permitting you to select specific actions such as Word Count or Word Frequency independently of proof
reading so you don't have to go through every feature every time.
Defining "usability" for the individual depends on preferences for how a correction happens. We divided the systems into two types-A and M; each with advan
tages and disadvantages. Type A automatically inserts the correctly typed word into the document in a two
step procedure: 1 ) proofing; 2) reviewing and correcting simultaneously. Type M marks the incorrect word in the document-a four-step procedure that involves:
1 ) proofing; 2) reviewing; 3) marking the words in the document; 4) reentering the document and correcting it manually or with the Search-and-Correct facility.
Let's look at the mechanics of using these two types of spelling systems, assuming you are using two disk usually remove the word processor in drive I and replace it with the spelling program, write the document file
name with the necessary program prompt, and wait while it is proofread.
When proofing is completed, the check list appears, and you deal with the words via the choices presented.
The wrong word is typed correctly and the correct word automatically replaces the incorrect word. All other choices are executed as the words are listed. When you complete the proofing and return to the document, the correct words are in place. You may have to reformat to compensate for different word lengths.
Check list provides choices
Now consider type M. As above, your word processor is in drive I, your document in drive II. You remove the word processor and replace it with the spelling system in Drive 1 , write the document file name with the necessary prompt, and wait while it is proofread.
Now consider type M. As above, your word processor is in drive I, your document in drive II. You remove the word processor and replace it with the spelling system in Drive 1 , write the document file name with the necessary prompt, and wait while it is proofread.