Dynamic Subspace

Category: Computers

Don Crabb’s “Omniscient Sage” Imagined in Guide to System 7.5

While searching around for early uses of algorithmic text, image, and music generating software from yesteryear (which I have been documenting on this page), I stumbled upon Don Crabb’s Guide to Macintosh System 7.5.5 (1996), which is a guide to using Apple’s System Software 7.5 on Macintosh and Power Macintosh computers in the mid-1990s.

In Chapter 5, “The Multimedia is the Message,” he writes the following prophetic passages that point to right about where we are now with giving generative AI access to our files so that we can chat with an AI about the contents of those files–for ideation, brainstorming, summation, search, discovering patterns, etc. Crabb had an idea that combined Apple’s then innovative OpenDoc technology, which flips the computing metaphor from application-centric to document-centric and that facilitates different Editors (aka programs) to work on/within different Documents or create new Documents via Stationary files, with the power of artificial intelligence to observe, learn, and collaborate with computer users. The foundation of his idea is what he calls the Open Desktop Architecture (ODA) and the Omniscient Sage. He writes:

The Multimedia/OpenDoc Desktop

The future of the Macintosh Desktop will reside in something I call Open desktop Architecture (ODA)— as Apple ought to articulate it and we ought to use it in the form of a new Multimedia/OpenDoc desktop.

Back in May of 1994 at the Worldwide Developer’s Conference, Don Norman— Apple Fellow and Interface Guru Extraordinaire— told us about one possible future Mac interface (AKA Finder) based on Apple Guide, that would become truly active in its assistance features and orientation. My Open Desktop Architecture relies on this same active assistance to make it fly, but it adds the OpenDoc document-centric idea of computing (see chapter 6 for more details) and the liberal use of multimedia data.

The Omniscient Sage

To start with, though, we need a basic interface metaphor in mind for our new desktop. I call my metaphor The Omniscient Sage. Corny sounding? You bet. But highly descriptive. The Omniscient Sage watches what you do on your Mac without being judgmental.

The role of the Omniscient Sage is to watch, assimilate, correlate, and then assist. Active assistance based on observation, analysis, and planning at a level as far above Apple Guide 1.0 as the it was above Balloon Help. Active assistance based on the artificial intelligence work that’s been modeled and executed over the last five years. Active assistance based on a world of OpenDoc files and apps.
Crabb, Don. Guide to Macintosh System 7.5.5. Hayden Books, 1996, p. 253.

Crabb’s Omniscient Sage seems science fictional thinking back to that period of time. This was the era when Apple was on the ropes and nearly down for the count. Then, Steve Jobs returned with NeXTSTEP, which delivered all of the things that Apple had led us to believe was forthcoming in OS 8 codenamed Copland. However, Jobs also killed OpenDoc at Apple.

Could the Omniscient Sage have been built on top of Mac OS X? While working towards OS X, Apple developed Apple Guide/Macintosh Guide as a robust help system that worked with AppleScript to guide the user along steps, and it could change based on the observed state of the software that the user needed help with. Yet, it was running on rails and therefore couldn’t adapt and adjust outside of those prescribed steps. Given advancements and R&D maybe this could have advanced towards something like Crabb imagined. But, when Mac OS X launched, the help system was much simpler as a web rendering engine and HTML.

Unfortunately, Crabb didn’t get to see how close we are now to his vision of the Omniscient Sage. He died in 2000 at the age of 44.

February 22, 2024
Kai’s SuperGOO 1.0 for Macintosh: Face Image Generator and Manipulator
Kai’s SuperGOO 1.0 is a program geared toward children to easily manipulate images and generate images of human faces that can be further modified using its built-in image editing tools that are accessible through an interesting but not always intuitive user interface.

The “Getting Started with Kai’s SuperGOO” text file includes this explanatory information:
```
ABOUT SUPERGOO

SuperGOO is organized into two basic rooms: Goo and Fusion. The Goo Room provides you with a series of distortion tools, both brushes and global effects, to create 'funhouse mirror' distortions to your images.

The Fusion Room provides you with both cloning tools- to combine faces (and other images) from your own sources- and a library of facial components to create your own face for the Goo Room.

Both rooms have an In and Out dialogue for importing and exporting saved images, or importing images from a TWAIN device such as a scanner or digital camera.

Play around with SuperGOO once you've got it installed... click a button and watch what happens. That's the quickest way to get acquainted with SuperGOO. For more detail, consult the 'Quick Reference Guide' included with your software. This brief, but thorough, card will provide you with all of the basics you need to know about SuperGOO, from input to output and everything in between. For more detail, consult the SuperGOO User's Guide included on your CD-ROM.
```
Kai’s SuperGOO ReadMe file includes the following system requirements:
```
MINIMUM SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

PC

Pentium Processor
Windows 95 (or higher)
Windows NT 4.0 (or higher)
16 MB Free RAM
25 MB HD Space for Install
40 MB Free HD Space (after Install)
CD-ROM Drive
16-bit video
14" Monitor

MACINTOSH

Power Macintosh
MacOS 7.6.1 (or higher)
16 MB RAM allocated to application
25 MB HD Space for Install
40 MB Free HD Space (after Install)
CD-ROM Drive
16-bit video
14" Monitor
```
I installed Kai’s SuperGOO on MacOS 8.1 emulated by SheepShaver on Debian Bookworm.

After installation from CD-ROM, the Kai’s SuperGOO 1.0 application file is 976K and has a minimum memory size of 17,290K and a preferred size of 25,482K.

Installation

Installing Kai’s SuperGOO is as straightforward as other Mac software of the era that used a basic installer. However, the initial screens shown below gesture toward its inventive user interface. To launch the installer, the user double clicks on “Kai’s SuperGOO 1.0 Installer” located in the root of the CD-ROM disc.

The first screen after launching the installer is shown above.

The license agreement screen notably has stylized round buttons for Print, Save, and Continue.

Clicking Continue on the previous screen takes the user to a traditional installer window. Clicking Install begins the installation of files to the selected folder on the user’s hard drive.

Several demonstration/prompting screens accompany the copying of files.

These screens preview key elements of SuperGOO, such as the brushes on the left and the Fusion Faces feature on the right.

This final screen reminds the user to register, but it also shows a stylized, miniature version of the user interface.

The software is installed and ready for use. In order to use the software, the CD-ROM has to be in the CD-ROM drive and mounted.

Use

When the user first launches the software, it prompts for a name to personalize it.

The main screen or what is called the “GOO Room” in the Read Me file. As suggested in that file, the UI invites the user to click on things to see what they do. Should the user find themselves backed inot a corner, there is an option to Reset in the lower right, or simply quitting the software with Cmd+Q and restarting the program. It opens with an image of Abraham Lincoln that can be manipulated using the tools on the left. The top set of tools are called Brushes.

I was left wondering why Abraham Lincoln’s face was selected for manipulation. Perhaps his image is well known and perhaps liked by children, but his important accomplishments as president and his tragic assassination seem to position his face as not deserving the more radical manipulation options available.

Using the Noise brush, I obscured Lincoln’s face as if it were seen through a primitive piece of glass.

Below the Brushes on the left are the GOO Effects. These create videos using starting image. Above is one frame of Vortex Tiling GOO Effect.

Above is one frame of the Zoom and Rotate effect.

By clicking on the bubble in the top middle of the UI takes the user to the Fusion Room (from the GOO Room) or to the GOO Room (from the Fusion Room). By clicking on the nuclear symbol button in the lower right corner of the Fusion Room gives the user the option to generate a new human face that mixes and matches elements akin to a police facial composite or E-FIT.

The results are mildly uncanny.

Most random generations result in white faces, but after many, many iterations, I arrived at this face with epicanthic folds. When using the eye selector on the left, there are three female options with epicanthic folds and two male options.

This generated face appears to have darker skin, but there’s no option for changing skin color or adjusting tone. As the various facial features are assembled, there seems to be a kind of blending that makes them work together. However, there isn’t a clear cut way to create faces outside of a narrow skin tone range using the Fusion generator. The natural variety of faces with different skin tones has to be imported.

To import an image, the user clicks the bubble in the middle to the left, which opens the “In Panel.” It can interface with image capture and scanning devices that have a TWAIN driver, open an existing file, or acquire from another device plug-in.

By clicking on the middle bubble to the right, the user comes to the “Out Panel,” which gives options to save the image, print the image, save the currently displayed Fusion generated face, copy the Fusion generated face to the GOO Room, or export the currently displayed image to a plug-in (if installed and selected by the user).

Kai’s SuperGOO is an interesting approach to generating images of people using algorithms. In this case, randomizing carefully edited pieces that seamlessly, more or less, fit together. Unfortunately, the available options for mixing and matching faces are homogeneous and tend toward lighter skin tones and limited facial features. While importing any face or image into the software is an option, the Fusion feature is crippled in terms of representation options available to the user.
February 21, 2024
Lexikon-Sonate 3.0, an Algorithmic Music Generator for Macintosh

Lexikon-Sonate 3.0 is a program that generates music algorithmically. Karlheinz Essl, the Austrian composer and performer, began developing this software in 1992 and released it as Shareware. Essl continued developing the software until 2020 and released the latest versions for Windows and MacOS as freeware with a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License.

In the included Word doc named “About Lexikon-Sonate,” Essel writes that the software is “An Interactive Realtime Composition for Computer-Controlled Piano.” He expands on this in the abstract for the software, “Lexikon-Sonate is a work in progress which was started in 1992. Instead of being a composition in which the structure is fixed by notation, it manifests itself as a computer program that composes the piece – or, more precisely: an excerpt of a virtually endless piano piece – in real time. Lexikon-Sonate lacks two characteristics of a traditional piano piece: 1) there is no pre-composed text to be interpreted, and 2) there is no need for an interpreter. Instead, the instructions for playing the piano – the indication “which key should be pressed how quickly and held down for how long” – are directly generated by a computer program and transmitted immediately to a player piano which executes them. In this paper I will describe from where I started and how I arrived at the concept of an infinite interactive realtime composition.” The rest of the Word doc file is a detailed guide that explains its origins, how it works, and how to use it.

For this post, I tried out Lexikon-Sonate 3.0 on Macintosh System 7.5.5 with Quicktime 4.1.2 installed so that it had access to Quicktime Instruments instead of MIDI output playback.

The Lexikon-Sonate_3.0 application Get Info window reports that it is version 3.0 dated 4 April 2002. It is 2.4MB in size, and its minimum memory requirement is 8,932K and its preferred size is 16,932K. The Comments box includes a brief description of “algorithmic music generator” and a link to Essl’s website for Lexikon-Sonate.

When you first open Lexikon-Sonate, the Status window on the right serves as a console reporting information like settings, loading modules, and the amount of free memory. It falls into the background when the primary interactive windows load below.

The main Lexikon-Sonate_3.0 window is on the left and the Control window is on the right. The main window shows the available algorithm music generating modules at the top, which can be selected in a sequence of up to 3 by clicking the grey circle to the left of each module. The selected modules will appear in the “Combination of Structure Generator” box at the bottom of the Control window on the right.

As the program begins to play music created by these algorithms, the keys illuminate to show what keys and chords are being played along with the dynamic slider. The sustain and soft pedals can be activated by the user by pressing the Space Bar or # respectively. Pressing the Escape key halts the current music generation.

If the user clicks on “auto” in the Control window or presses the Return key, the software will cycle through modules on its own giving the software total control of the music generation process.

If this version of the software were registered, you have access to the Record > Start or Stop feature.

The Apple menu > About Lexikon-Sonate has a detailed window summarizing how the software works.

The descriptive About window in Lexikon-Sonate 3.0.

The Edit menu with an option for “Overdrive” pre-selected.

The Windows menu listing its three windows: Status (the console in the background), Lexikon-Sonate_3.0 (main window on the left), and Control (the main control window for starting and stopping play on the right).

From the Settings menu, Setup opens a new window with settings for playback and MIDI (see below). The Control option opens the Control window. Hotkeys does not seem to do anything on my installation.

Since I don’t have a MIDI device (and they can be difficult to configure with Sheepshaver anyways), I opted to play through Quicktime (automatically selected by default). There are other settings for MIDI and logging on this window, too.

Lexikon-Sonate seems like a remarkable piece of software that I wish that I had known about many years ago. It would have been something I would have enjoyed experimenting with.

Also, Essl has created remarkable recordings and made interesting performances using his software, some of which are shared in videos on his website here.

February 19, 2024
Haiku Master 2.2, a Haiku Generating Hypercard Stack for Macintosh
Continuing my work exploring pre-AI generative technologies, I found a copy of Andrew Stone’s Haiku Master, a HyperCard stack for Macintosh that generates haikus, on the archived version of TextWorx Toolshed page, which links to other text generating and manipulating programs for Macintosh and MS-DOS. Haiku Master requires the user to have a copy of Apple’s HyperCard Player installed on the system. I have HyperCard Player 2.4.1 installed on the emulated System 7.5.5 installation on SheepShaver used for these screenshots.

Haiku Master is a lean HyperCard stack at only 32K on disk and 16,704 bytes actually used. It was created on 16 July 1998.

After double clicking on Haiku Master, the stack automatically launches HyperCard Player and the user is presented with this main window. In the center, a haiku is already generated.
```
vibrant dream cell
breathes quantum fire
hungry sensuous syllables.
```
Instead of a 5-7-5 syllable line arrangement, it seems to generate haiku that are a total of 17 syllables.

Unlike some of the other text generators that I’ve looked at here, Haiku Master has a singular focus to just create haikus of a certain variety. Other text generators from this era seem to do several different types of text generation, perhaps because once one kind of assembly algorithm is made, it might not be too challenging to alter it for a different kind of text generation, or it might be over time those other programs acquired new features with subsequent new versions.

By clicking on the Haiku button in the bottom center, another haiku is generated.

Clicking on Library prompts the user to open a file, perhaps a corpus of words? The documentation built into the stack doesn’t explain what a library is or how it is used, and there is no additional documentation or files included in the downloaded archive.

Clicking on Edit Words opens this screen titled Haiku Master Vocabulary with lists of word lists broken down into 10 sections: 1) intro. words, 2) adjectives, 3) nouns, 4) verbs, 5) adjectives, 6) nouns, 7) 1 syllable end, 8) 2 syllables end, 9) 3 syllables end, and 10) 4 syllables end.

Clicking on the Help/? question mark icon in the lower left opens this screen of text titled “How the HAIKU MASTER Works.” It explains how it pieces together a haiku of 17 syllables using the words from the 10 categories of word lists as needed. The following two images continue the explanation.

Clicking on “See Saved” on the screen above or from the main haiku composition window leads you to a running list of previously generated and saved haikus shown below.

From this screen, you can click on “Save to Text File” to save the haikus in an editable text file, or you can click on “Haiku” on the bottom of this screen to take you back to the main composition window shown below.

Clicking on “Haiku Master” above the haiku composition area leads you to the about screen shown below.

The about screen provides Andrew Stone’s contact information, including his GEnie username. It noes that this copy was “modified & distributed with ‘If Monks had Macs…’ with Andrew’s permission.” The modifications were made by Brian Thomas in 1989. It notes this is Haiku Master version 2.2.

Brian Thomas is the developer who put together If Monks Had Macs . . .. It was distributed by The Voyager Company, a company that innovated early ebooks for Macintosh called Expanded Books and multimedia CD-ROM titles, which I’ve written about previously here, here, here, here, and here.

This reminds me that during my first year in Brooklyn, Bob Stein, co-founder of Voyager Company, co-founder of The Criterion Collection, and co-director of The Institute for the Future of the Book, reached out to me (I think on Twitter–I hadn’t left the platform yet at that time–as I had shared some things about William Gibson’s Sprawl Trilogy Expanded Book published by Voyager) and graciously spoke with me at his home in Williamsburg one snowy afternoon about Voyager Company, Expanded Books, and personal computer pioneers he was friends with.
January 18, 2024
Robo Riter 3.1, an Automatic Haiku, French Lai, Ballade, and Limerick Text Generator for Macintosh
Continuing my exploration of pre-AI text and image generating software, I would like to share some screenshots and information about Robo Riter 3.1, a text-generating program for Macintosh that specializes in haiku, French lai, ballade, and limericks, created by Douglas L. Lieberman, a writer and producer in television, film, and computer multimedia projects.

Robo Riter has the tag line, “Composes poetry at the click of a button!” And, on his archived website’s contact page, he offers it for download if “you can’t afford to hire a writer.”

Lieberman wrote the follow abstract when he submitted his program to the pre-1999 info-mac archive (there was a massive purge of software on info-mac that removed Robo Riter and other software from later versions of the info-mac archive after 1999):
```
#### BINHEX     robo-riter.hqx   ****

From: rocketriter@earthlink.net
Subject: Robo Riter


From: (Douglas L. Lieberman) rocketriter@earthlink.net
Subject: Robo Riter


Robo Riter -- the automatic poetry machine! Composes poems at the click
of a button, no two ever alike. Robo Riter can create profound and
deeply moving Haiku, French Lai, Ballades and even Limericks. Amaze your
friends! Mystify your neighbors! Be the first on your block to own Robo
Riter, for Poetry On Demand!

Created with SuperCard 3.0

System requirements:
* System 7.6 and above
* Power Macintosh  or 680X0 with at least 16 MB of RAM
* 2 MB of hard drive space

-- 
Douglas L. Lieberman
Rocket Riter, Inc.
Screenwriting for Interactive Media, Stage & Screen
Visit my website at:
http://home.earthlink.net/~rocketriter/
```
I am indebted to adespoton on MacintoshGarden.org for finding a copy of Robo Riter stored in a 1998 archive of info-mac that was once hosted by Apple Computer. You can browse the directory of programs that includes Robo Riter here.

Before launching Robo Riter, the Get Info window shows that it was created on 3 Mar. 1997. It is a “fat” application, meaning that it can be run on 68k and PPC Macs. It’s suggested memory size is 5,107 K, and its minimum and preferred memory sizes are populated with that value. As I’m running this in SheepShaver, I can’t turn on virtual memory to realize that 1,011 K memory savings mentioned in the Note at the bottom of the window.

When Robo Riter is first launched, the window above serves as the main interface for the program. It has tabs across the top of the window for Haiku, French Lai, Ballade, Limerick, and HELP. Below the tabs is the monogram, “From the Desk of Robo Riter” followed by a blank space. At the bottom of the window are two buttons: Compose Poem and Save Poem as Text File. Unlike some of the other text generating programs, there are no options and there are no editable corpus or word lists external to the program itself.

Before looking at Robo Riter’s compositions, let’s check out the two menus. The Apple menu yields “About Robo Riter.”

The About Robo Riter window indicates that it was built using SuperCard, an application development environment that is like HyperCard on steroids. At the time, Allegiant Technologies had acquired SuperCard.

Robo Riter’s File menu only has the option to Quit the program.

Returning to the main window and the Haiku tab, clicking on the Compose Poem button results in a haiku written by the program after the program shows a series of three messages or thoughts with corresponding musical notes. For example, it displayed “Letting my mind go whoosh!,” “Counting syllables on my chins,” and “Meditating with profound fervor” before showing the resulting “ONE LONELY HERO” haiku, which appears a word-at-a-time like watching an LLM reply in a chat.

After clicking on the French Lai tab, I clicked on Compose Poem. It’s pre-generation text was: “Researching a rather violent subject,” “Illuminating its dynamic aspects,” and “Developing theosophical influences.” Then, the “SHINING SUN” French Lai played across the screen.

Next, I clicked on the Ballade tab and selected Compose Poem. It’s pre-generation text was: “Developing a down to earth topic,” “Overlaying sea-faring themes,” and “Selecting perfectly matched rhymes, and rhythms.” Then, “THIS SWIFT FRAIL NUN” appeared in the composition area in the window.

The Limerick tab proved a little irreverent compared to the other composition tabs, which is fitting, I suppose, given the genre. After pressing Compose Poem,” “Selecting a theme and a punch line” appeared with a corresponding musical tone. Then, “Assembling ill-considered rhymes” appeared with a fart sound, and finally, “Convulsing at my own jokes” with a recorded “whoops” sound before showing “THE MODEL FROM PLINKETT” limerick.

The HELP tab has sub sections accessible via selecting the radio button next to Haiku, French Lai, Ballade, or Limerick.

Each of these help sections provide an explanation of that genre of poem’s construction, context, and purpose.

Robo Riter is more a black box than some of the other text generating applications that I’ve written about before. But, it’s compositions through several iterations seem quite good and interesting. Lieberman seems to have done good work behind the scenes to make his program produce what I read on the few trials that I did.
January 16, 2024