Multimedia

Hardware

There are six items that can be used for the creation and display of multimedia:

• TV - a portable monitor, plus the six fixed monitors in room 107.
• VCR
• Video camera - a hand-held Sony camera, using 8 mm videotape, with tripod.
• Computer - a Macintosh Performa 636 with CD-ROM drive and speakers.
• Computer - a Toshiba computer with a Windows 95 operating system and full multimedia capability.
• Laserdisk player - we have two packages of laserdisks to accompany this, both of which are collections of old film loops.

All the items are portable, and many can be inter-connected. For example:

• The Mac display can be shown on the TV monitor, and/or recorded by the VCR.
• The VCR output can be shown on the Mac, and video images can be captured.
• The video-camera output can be recorded by the VCR, or can be also be shown and captured using the Mac.

The Windows machine is a relatively new acquisition. Any suggestions for good software will be gratefully received. The laserdisk player is also a new acquisition, so feel free to drop by and try it out.

It is also possible to display the output of the computers on the big three-gun RGB projection system in SCI 107. If you would like to do this, please give as much notice as you can. At least a week would be nice.

Software

A variety of software is available for the Mac, including:

• Interactive Physics II - custom-made physics simulations
• Gravitation - a good simulation showing how masses interact via gravity
• Mathematica - 2-D and 3-D visualization
• Netscape 2.0 - access the Web (available in room 107 only)
• Grolier multimedia encyclopedia - some good animations
• AfterDark screensaver - includes some basic physics