SuperPaint
The first paint program designed for video capture and editing. Developed at Xerox PARC in the early 1970s by Richard Shoup, the tool palette (shown below) was displayed on a second monitor. A pen and digitizer tablet were used for input and control. SuperPaint was programmed in BCPL (predecessor to the C language) on a Data General Nova 800, and the resulting system took up two racks five feet high. It was first used publicly during the NASA Pioneer missions to Venus and Saturn in 1978-79. The system was moved to Ames mission control and used to create real-time videographics illustrating the fly-bys and scientific results for TV and press coverage. The system is still operational at the Computer Museum at Ames Research Center, Mountain View, CA.
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| SuperPaint Tool Palette |
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| This is the on-screen tool palette from SuperPaint, which was displayed on a second monitor. Starting with Text (T) and moving left to right, the tools are: Text, Video in, New brush shape, Line, Gridding, Area Fills, Erase, Paint, Enlarge x2, Reduce x2, Move, Copy, Color table animation, Paint, Paint, Load, Save, Copy color, Cycle animation, Paint. (Image courtesy of Richard Shoup.) |