WHAT IS MULTIMDIA?

The concepts behind what is emerging today date back to over four decades to a series of visionary thinkers who foresaw the evolution of computers towards richer personalized devices that would become an extension of the individual. In 1945 Vannevar  Bush, then the director of the office of Scientific Research and Development in the U.S. government, suggested that one of the future devices available for individuals would be a memex. The memex would initially be an associative device, so that related items could be easily located.

Today, the linking of associated data for easy access is called hypertext, a term coined by Ted Nelson, or hypermedia, when any type of media form can be linked. It is the simultaneous use of data in different media forms (voice, video, text, animations, etc.) that is called multimedia. Digital media and audio media are the most demanding of the new media that are being added to the repertoire of computing and communications systems.

Because of their time-sampled nature, these types of media are frequently referred to as continuous media (CM)The term multimedia computing commonly refers to the use of multimedia data types in computer applications and systems, and multimedia communications denotes communications systems which support the real-time transmission of continuous media.

The idea of linking relating information gave impetus to Ted Nelson and Dough Englebart, who separately conceived and development the first computerized versions of hypertext-style editing systems. In 1968 Englebart demonstrated the NLS system developed at SRI, which had interactive multiperson editing, branching to different files, text search facilities, and outline processing. In the late 1960s, Ted Nelson and Andries van Dam collaborated at Brown University to develop a hypertext editing system on IBM 360. A fourth-generation system developed at Brown, inter-media, has continued this research and includes animation and video tools.

In 1967, Nicholas Negroponate formed the Architecture Machine Group in the Architecture Department at MIT. Although the initial goal was to use computers for architectural design, a new focus developed: that of making computers easier to use.

Spatial data management system

In early 1976, the Architecture Machine Group proposed a research program to the U.S. Defense Advance Research Projects Agency (DARPA) entitled “Augmentation of Human Resource In Command and Control through Multimedia Media Man-Machine interaction.” A basic precept of the project would be the use of spatial cues to aid in task performance and memory. Information organization would be tied to locality, and the user interface would include a large wall-size display and an octaphonic sound system to provide spatial audio cues. The user would access a data item by in the space could be text, graphics, videos, or active procedures.

The Spatial Data Management System (SDMS) was a major step toward moving the computer interface away form the conventional video display terminal to one which was close to human perceptual space. The SDMS media room contained an instrumented Eames chair, large projection screen, and side view video screens. While seated in the chair, the user could use joysticks, a touch screen, or stylus. These controls were used to navigate through the information space viewed on the large screen, which acted as a window to the data space. one of the side view monitors provided a continuous top-level view of the information landscape.

The first version of the system organized the space hierarchically, with lower levels reachable via ports. SDMS II used a single global space and zooming could be used to inspect an object in grater detail. While navigating the space, auditory cues provided a sense of direction and distance from an object. Later, voice-based navigation and control were added to the system.

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