#IllumiLink / AirLink
24 messages in this thread
Hey all, further developments of Geodesic Publications 'AirLink'
hardware/software.
The 'basic' AirLink is a gadget you can plug into your 2nd mousie port, and
that will send/receive InfraRed commands. I have been using that version
to control a CD, LD, TV successfully so far. Have created both their own
'AirWindows' and CanDo and AV scripts to do it (the AirLink software is
very ARexx controllable). Neat.
Well, Geodesic also sells something they call 'IllumiLink', which is the
same as the AirLink, PLUS it allows control of the whole shebang from a
wireless phone. Basically a phone tone decoder interfaced to the software.
The primary purpose of the device is to allow control of interactive
presentations on the Amiga using a wireless phone. (ie. use the phone pad
buttons to emulate mouse, keyboard, macros, etc)
But…. now for the really weird (exciting?) idea. I was able to set the
system up so that a friend of mine, across town, could call me, and then he
controlled my Amiga from HIS phone. He was able to play my CD player,
start/stop a slide show, and even play (poorly) a video game. The big
problem was that he couldn't see what he was doing. Well, if the Amiga
screen was being broadcast LIVE, then he could see what he was doing,
right? So, how about an INTERACTIVE CABLE TV GAME? I could see players
calling up and being connected and playing…. shoot, if two of these
devices were connected to the machine, and you split the amiga screen, you
could have two player games going on (either cooperative or challenge).
I know that others (MM, for instance) have been considering this as well.
Does anyone know if there is any 'delay' between the broadcast of a cable
signal, and when it reached the home? (ie. if my amiga shows something
NOW, does it happen instantly at home, or take a few seconds?) Any other
caveats that folks can warn me of? And does this sound like a real dud of
an idea, or what? Comments would be very welcome.
–jp–seattle–
This is the best game idea I have ever heard of. As far as delays go,
there are none noticeable to a human being. The cable signal travels at
about .99 lightspeed. Your brain isn't capable of noticing a delay of more
than about 0.1 seconds, so if your cable company's main signal is generated
within 0.1 lightseconds (18,000 miles) of your house, you have no problem.
Thanks for the encouragement. I'm not sure what (if any) delays occur
during a cable broadcast. I'd agree that if the time diff tween the
monitor image appearing, and the image appearing on tv sets was less than
1 second, then it wouldn't be a prob.
In any case, there are a multitude of styles of interactivity. Arcade type
action would require instantaneous response, while an adventure type game
wouldn't.
Sounds like a great idea, John. It could almost be used in conjuction with
the Nickelodeon game show that uses all the Amigas!! A problem might be
getting all the federal committees (telecom, broadcasting, etc) to agree on
it! This could really take off…
Simon
Whap! — Better than a poke in the eye with a sharp thingie
Chalk up cable access as another subject to which I am completely
ignorant…. 🙂 Why would you need all the fed committees to agree to it?
I was thinking of public access cable. I was under the impression that the
local cable company had pretty much total control over that; if they agree
then you were on your way. And I've seen some pretty *weird* groups using
the air, that's for sure!
Like your Whap! signature too; is there any particular reason for it?
Maybe I overstepped my knowledge a little in that last message, but it
seems to me that everything on the airwaves needs to be regulated some way
or another, at least here in Canada. Public access may be an entirely
different story, tho!
My Whap! signature is usually related to events over in the MPGAMES forum,
that's where I spend a lot of my time. I don't stick to one signature any
more, I find they get somewhat stale/outdated after a while. Maybe I'm
just not creative enough <g>.
Simon
Whap! — Man's best friend
Well, I'm attending a 'Public Access' orientation meeting this coming
Wednesday at my local cable station, so I'll know then, I guess.
My WHAP! sig has my initial and city. About a year ago someone suggested
that folks sig include their local, so that others would know, and that
seemed like a good idea to me at the time. Maybe I should change it to
–jp–Sunny Old Seattle– and see if I get a reaction? 🙂
–jp–seattle–
Including your locality in your sig is a good idea. I'll see if I can work
it into mine. Hmmm… How about:
Simon Whapping from Edmonton, Canada
Well, needs work. <g>
Whap! — Man's best friend
I've been trying to get the local Amiga user group to investigate the
"local access" station, too. Seems like a natural. Do you know of other
groups that do this? If so, I'd say an easy way to generate more
programming would be to swap tapes, and allow free and easy re-editing to
fill up an hour. Our local access channel is pitiful. They run the same
goofy tapes on Pleidean UFO contactees, strange artsy tapes, and a few
other hard-to-watch shows. Very little interesting programming. Sounds
like Amiga user group tapes fit right in there. 🙂
As for Whap signatures, I've seen enough. Someday, I'm going to write a
macro to delete them from my transcripts and the white space that surrounds
them.
I'll be glad to let you know what we find out. My main questions are: 1)
what level of Amiga video hardware do I need to put it on the air (ie. will
a cheap encoder output be ok? Or do I need to go to a SuperGen or such?
2) How 'real-time' live is it? 3) What video resources are avail there to
help? (but frankly, I don't see much as necessary with my concept) 4) How
many phone lines are coming in, and can they be used with the Amiga?
etc…. Talk to you later.
–jp–seattle–
Boy are you in for a suprise!
Just take a look at the facilities.
I hope you mean a *good* surprise! I'm off to a 'orientation' meeting
tonight, so we'll see….
–jp–seattle–
Gee, John, Amiga's figure prominently in both of our public access stations
here in Dayton OH. You mean it's not like that EVERYwhere? One has 7 Amiga
setups, three with Toasters. The other one had a show on last month
interviewing our own local Eric Schwartz. A few years ago, Greg Tibbs made
the airwaves, describing Rejuvinator (I think). The southern station is
working on a gadget that will let folks at home call in and select Amiga
graphics, though I'm fuzzy on the details.
Karl
– via Whap!
Do you know if all these locally produced Amiga shows know about each
other? Seems to me they're still in teh stage where they could benefit
from exchanging video with each other, and not be concerned about any
commercial nature, since they're all braodcast on the non-profit
channels…
John,
They do exchange stuff with each other, though there's been a fair
amount of good-natured competition with each other over the years. I didn't
mean to imply that both are going off and duplicating efforts, or don't
know what each other are doing. It's merely a matter of which
Dayton-Amigans live in which cable district, and so who wants to be the
"producer". Doug Downing and I have done the graphics for a
drum-and-bugle-corps competition the last two years, this year by using
Toaster transitions for my Imagined logos. The producer is beside himself:
he's ecstatic with the graphics (though we're far from network quality),
but he's upset it makes the rest of his video effort "pale by comparison",
as the Midwest judge put it. <chuckle> That's the great thing about public
access TV: you don't have to be all that good to make people's jaws drop
since the medium generally looks so bad anyway!
Karl
P.S. The non-profit status of these stations can also be a pain. One of
them used to do a show on computing in general. Some Amiga guys started
putting on one or two about Tibbs and Toasters, etc. They said we'd used
the word Amiga too often and were worried about their lawyers claiming we
were doing commercials for the local Amiga store in disguise. One producer
wanted to tape out user-group meetings for the station but asked that we
not use the word Amiga. He was quite put out when I fell on the floor
laughing.
– via Whap!
The Madison access channel is so *underused* I wish anyone would come along
and produce for it – be it the Mac, PC or Atari group in town. Or a
multimedia show in general… There's pro-UFO and pro-trance channeling
propaganda on our channel already, a little Amiga promotion wouldn't hurt.
John,
The difference may be that the pro-UFO and the pro-trance people aren't
actually selling anything, while if you promote a chunk of hardware, they
might get uptight. I suspect it comes down to the people involved in the
channel in your area, though. The channel here has gone so far as to give
DPaint classes just to get more involvement. Titler classes, too. I suspect
it takes a techie-zealot to get things rolling, though. The local version
of Wayne and Garth have some guy in the control room doing Toaster effects
on them; works very well. I even sat in on a show and made a little fly
anim-brush genlocked around their heads that they swatted at. Great fun.
Wish I could export some for you.
Karl
– via Whap!
I hate to tell you this, jp, but its been done! The NYU Interactive TV
degree program, run out of the Tisch School of the Arts, has a Cable show
here in Manhatttan which ofthen runs interactive video art projects. One,
which you may have heard of, was "Dan's Apartment", where a laser videodisk
of a "walk" through Dan (sullivan, I think)'s apartment was controlled via
a touch tone detector plugged into an AMiga. There was also a
tone-controlled drawing program, and a few other similar projects. "Funny
thing", says Dan, "Nearly everyone drew penises!" Well, now you know whats
on the minds of the cutting edge interactive TV users of NYC. They also had
a project using the Radio Shack voice recognition chip. ANyway, that
shouldn't stop you from doing your own project.
J H H " The spoiler" Lowengard
Hey, I don't have any problems with others having done it before.
Great! as far as I'm concerned. It's encouraging, actually.
I know of another individual who is working on a similar idea. He is
much further along on it, actually. So far the aim seems to be along
the line of 'interactive' bulletin boards or slideshows, however.
That's wonderful too, I think (and probably more profitable 🙂 but
I was keep coming back to a *game*.
Imagine two lines into the studio. Two people call up and 'challenge'
each other. The winner stays on line, the loser hangs up. Next
challenger, please 🙂
Or, in a one-person format, each caller could input their own 'code'
and save/restore game settings from prior calls. That way the caller
could gradually get very deep into the game. Limit the calls to 5
minutes or such?
I wonder…. would watching other folk play be *boring* to others?
Or would the voyerism entice folks to watch/participate?
Hey, maybe I'll build an interface to VaporPaint via interactive
cable? Then you could say that your program was being watched by
millions (well, maybe dozens, anyway 🙂 If you have any other
tidbits about the NY project, let me know, ok? Thanks.
One of my "background" projects is to take the vapor paint workscreen and
make it into a terminal program to a Vapor Host. The entire bbs would
communicate in vector graphics! You would even "sign In". It would not be a
6D system like vapor or even ANimate, just allow you an infinite sized
paper to doodle on. (size of doodle may be limited by SYSOP or something
like that) There's a lot of little details, but he he. Real CYberspace.
jhhl,"The Yankee Flatline"
Connect to a "Vapor Host."? We would engage in VaporTalk, or VaporComm?
Maybe you could devote different areas of the 'paper' to different 'rooms';
similar to regular BBS's in terms of user access? Interesting.
–jp–seattle–
I was hoping it wouldn't be that organized. YOu'd be able to follow
"threads" to related messages, it the autor put them in. A lot of the
objects would be kept locally from previous sessions (checksummed for
accuraccy) Still thinking about it. NOT liek a 3d cyberspace with "rooms"
and "scenery", but more like a visual, eternal literature. No erasing
allowed!
cyber henry
Sounds like Black Belt's NoteBook, if they took out all DELETE functions,
and automatically saved each and every change you made! It would just
grow and grow. I realize that isn't exactly it, but it's the closest I
could come right now. 🙂
Is this a 'am gonna do' project, or musing? You mention several other VP
enhancements in the docs (ie. using VP to control sound/MIDI/other events)
that I'm curious if you're planning on adding. Are you interested in
suggestions for VP, or do you just want to keep it going in your very
personal way?
–jp–seattle–
jp, anyone can suggest anything. It's like writing a letter to your
congress person (so who elected me?) The music parts…there's one
unfinished music part that uses it "not sporting" IMPI bridge facilities. I
don't want to push it even though it would probably work, but a certain
company has a certain piece of hardware in for repair that I'd like to see
again. Heh Heh. But I was even thinking of working on a direct music
renederer tonight.. (I got the 2.0 docs on AIFF 16 bit sound formats, so
that could be a real possibility as well… Now, if only there were some 16
bit hardware around!) Then again, I've been busy at my real job, too, and
am getting tired.
j h h lowengard, not whapping from anywhere. ok then, from New York
City