From mdm1004@cus.cam.ac.ukThu Mar 30 15:43:54 1995
Date: Thu, 30 Mar 1995 19:27:36 +0100 (BST)
From: "M.D. Mackey" <mdm1004@cus.cam.ac.uk>
To: mkruse@saunix.sau.edu
Subject: info_hwy.txt


Title: The Information Superhighway 

By:    Mark Mackey (mdm1004@cus.cam.ac.uk)

Quick description: A hypothetical look at a network cable...

Using: This image was produced using Persistence of Vision version 2, running 
       on a 486DX-33 with 8MB RAM.

Comments:

Well, this image underwent a long, slow evolution. I started thinking about
the topic, 'The Internet', which was really crying out for something 
cyberspacy as an image, even though the concept no doubt is becoming a
bit cliche'd. I went through about four or five different designs of what 
I wanted to do, and then, one night, I suddenly wondered what a network 
packet really _looked_ like.

Well, tying this up with the whole 'information superhighway' politicobabble
didn't take long, and so on paper I had a good idea of what I wanted to do.
However, I was really unable to get a good 'tangled cable' effect with the 
tools I had (specifically Connect The Dots), and I though that a whole
heap of joined torus sections might do the job better. I couldn't find a
tool to do this, so I did the traditional thing and wrote one, TORPATCH.
As might have been expected, writing the tool took more time than anything
else about this image... I should release the tool sometime in the coming
month, when I have made it sufficiently user-friendly :).

The rest of the image was composed entirely by hand.

The only problem I had then was to decide what lay at the end of the 
highway? The answer was obvious: Bill Gates, of course!

Whinges:

I wish POV could do light diminishing. I hope this is going to be featured
in the new version...