Following is the basic product design document and implementation plans which we worked from: >Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1992 11:35:43 -0400 >From: Dick Cogger >Subject: Re: Mac programming >To: Tim Dorcey > > >Hi Tim, > Yes, let's start as soon as possible. ... > The task is basically to get Mac desk-top-video conferencing going >as soon as possible in any do-able mode at all. I have quick-time, a sample >>video player that puts up a live video window, using either a rasterops 24stv >or a video spigot, and I can step thru the program in ThinkC debugger. >So now it's a case of grabbing images, computing interframe diffs, making >packets, building UDP datagrams and sending with MacTCP, receiving them, >displaying, and whatever user-interface goodies needed to support that. >Then, we want to get audio going too. I havn't gotten very far researching >that. > After next week, I'm planning to take two weeks vacation, during >which, I plan to work full time plus on getting some of this to happen. >Your help would be extremely valuable-- I figure if we can get something >working at all, we can then refine it along the way and probably get >additional resources, time-committment, etc. > -Dick Things then got off to a slow start as it wasn't until the end of July that we were even able to grab a frame from the Spigot. The first network capable version was called "WatchTim" and as near as can figure was created on August 31, 1992, except that you couldn't really watch me because I didn't have a camera. Instead you got to see a videotape of C-SPAN that I used for all of the early development. A separate application called "VideoSend" was used to transmit. Soon, there was a "WatchDick" and I think maybe a "WatchSteve," and before I went any further Dick suggested that I should add a way to enter IP addresses rather than hard-coding them in the application (I had been aiming for a streamlined user interface). But, of course, what he really wanted was a single application that would both send and receive, so September 13th brought us "DigitDemo2Way." By this time, everyone was getting tired of my naming style, and as a quick thinking maneuver to avoid the name suggested by our Vice President ("EZ-Pic"), Dick came up with "CU-SeeMe," on September 27th, I think. So, I guess that would be the official birthday for CU-SeeMe. Or, if you want to go with the first transmission outside Cornell, I would put that around September 1--shortly after the first local transmission (this is, after all, the Internet Protocol, and if you can send it across the room, you can send it around the world!). -Tim __________________________________________________________________ Tim Dorcey T.Dorcey@cornell.edu Sr. Programmer/Analyst (607) 255-5715 Advanced Technologies & Planning CIT Network Resources Cornell University Ithaca, NY 14850