Date   : Fri, 05 Jan 2007 17:52:56 -0600
From   : julesrichardsonuk@... (Jules Richardson)
Subject: Acorn Interactive Video system

Ian Wolstenholme wrote:
> This is very interesting, I wasn't aware of an Interactive Video
> system before the Domesday System.

I knew it was around from the flyer - but I'd always assumed that it was 
essentially a spin-off product from the Domesday project (albeit available 
before the final Domesday product).

This magazine article suggests that Acorn were marketing interactive video 
products a long time before Domesday though (albeit probably to very 
specialised audiences - although given the price tag that's hardly surprising).

Actually, to be fair, I believe Domesday was several years in the making - I'm 
sure I've got notes dating back to 1984, which would have been around the time 
this 'IV' system was apparently first available. But still, it could be that 
Domesday was a natural progression from an existing product, rather than a 
revolutionary thing in its own right (not to say that there weren't plenty of 
revolutionary aspects in Domesday though, such as the massive data collection, 
the UI, the storing of an application on a Laserdisc etc.)

> The Domesday Machine uses the "Master Advanced Interactive
> Video" computer, I always wondered how the word "Advanced"
> got in there, maybe it was to distinguish it as the Mk II version
> of this earlier BBC B "Interactive Video", just like ANFS followed
> NFS and ADFS followed DFS!

Yep, that would be my guess too - particularly as it seems the IV product 
ended its days on a Master.

> I'm not sure about all this though, I wonder are we talking
> about an actual interactive video system based on the BBC B
> which was released and available to buy long before Domesday
> came out, or a development system for the Domesday Project
> using the BBC B since the Master hadn't been launched at the time?

See above; the timeline's interesting and it's perhaps impossible to say which 
came first (IV product, or Domesday "first steps"). I'll hunt out my Domesday 
notes tomorrow evening when I get home and see what the earliest dates I have 
are. I think I've got some early magazine scans somewhere too (sort of 
"pre-announcement" stuff)

> The article mentions that the BBC and Philips are developing
> a laserdisc player to run the system.  I think as a result of that,
> the genlock was moved from the BBC to the LV player (although
> I may be wrong about that).

I've had a private message from someone who believes that the IV system did 
have a genlock; whether it was the same board or not I don't know. I've heard 
before that the BBC themselves had BBC B machines equipped with genlocks, but 
again I don't know which particular board it was.

The Master AIV that Adrian over at binary dinosaurs has was used for 
production of some of the Domesday content, and that one has a Cox genlock 
inside it (along with the SCSI board), so was obviously used with a player 
that had no genlock capability of its own.  (I've got one with the same 
genlock fitted the same way, but there's no sign that one ever had a SCSI 
board, so I think it must have been put together for some unrelated purpose)

 >  Clearly by the time the
> project was ready to be launched, the Master 128 had come
> out so Acorn could hardly have brought out a new system
> based around the BBC B which was no longer in production.

Yep, makes sense - plus it would have been a lot easier to have the 
self-contained Master system than a BBC, external SCSI board, 6502 copro etc. 
scattered around the desk even if the beeb was still current.

cheers

Jules