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PIGS
Wade Shaw
PIGS: Wade Shaw
The PDP15 was purchased to provide an interactive graphics system for the laboratory. It ran as a stand-alone system initially but was eventually connected to the 1906A.
A number of interactive programs relevant to animation were developed including software for taking input from a D-MAC Digitiser, a font design program, a SC4020 previewer, a VCS3 Synthesiser for sound tracks and some animation systems such as CAMPER.
The PDP15 had a range of input/output devices and a unified method of handling these was developed called PIGS by Wade Shaw. PIGS stood for PDP15 Interactive Graphics System and, today, would be called a User Interface Management System although the term has not been invented then. It was used a sa front end by a number of the applications.
The video shows Wade making use of a variety of input devices before designing some animation with it.
The input devices included a keyboard, button set, sonic tablet and lightpen.
Wade originated at the University of Texas at Austin. Bob Hopgood met him at UAIDE 69 in San Diego and again when he visited Jim Browne at Texas. Wade spent two periods at the Atlas Laboratory working on interactive graphics systems. He had previously worked at the MIT Media Laboratory where he developed a pressure-sensitive stylus and drawing program for his Masters Thesis.