My partners got so excited about the ease with which one can create data-driven programs using QuartzComposer for the Mac that I just had to demonstrate to them that Apple doesn’t have any kind of lock on this domain. In fact, it brought to my mind a very old Mac OS 9 (or earlier I guess) visual programming language called Prograph, which has now become Marten and a handy little signal processing tool called Cantata, which has now become VisiQuest (look at the tutorials near the bottom of the page). And, of course, that’s not to mention the many other packages out there like PureData, LabView, etc.

Anyway, here’s my demonstration using Ptolemy II 7.0.1 over the top of FMJ (forget JMF - “Oh Sun Microsystems, why have you forsaken us?”):

At our company meeting, we were playing with a USB microscope Don borrowed from a friend of his. And one must admit that’s a much cooler thing to play with than a webcam. But, hey, my point can be made without the fancy hardware. ;-)