Today multimedia might be defined as the seamless digital integration of text, graphics, animation, audio, still images and motion video in a way that provides individual users with high levels of control and interaction. The evolution of Multimedia is a story of the emergence and convergence of these technologies.
As these technologies developed along separate paths for disparate purposes, visionaries saw the possibilities for the sum of the parts as well potential personal application in the broader societal context This chapter highlights visionaries and technological developments from the development of the printing press to the emergence of the WWW .
"The historian, with a vast chronological account of a people, parallels it with a skip trail which stops only at the salient items, and can follow at any time contemporary trails which lead him all over civilisation at a particular epoch. There is a new profession of trailblazers, those who find delight in the task of establishing useful trails through the enormous mass of the common record. The inheritance from the master becomes, not only his additions to the world's record, but for his disciples the entire scaffolding by which they were erected." Vannevar Bush (1945).
This chapter is constructed around five themes developed over a time line. Presented within an interactive timeline framework, the reader has the option to pursue elaboration with a click of the mouse.
Visionaries: From the ingenious idea of the programmable computer, trace the innovations of the outstanding thinkers that had a direct impact on the explosion of the technological age.
Text, Processing and Software: Inventions and innovations that spawned the development of software enabling computers to move from mathematical processing to technology that creates and delivers multi media.
Computers: From the printing press through the exclusive military and academic and corporate worlds trace computer development into the ubiquitous role of the desktop personal computer of today.
Audio & Communication: From the telegraph signal to cellular telephones, follow the development from signal transmission to digital transmission of voice
Video &Animation: From manually manipulated negative film and hand drawn sketches, video and animation develops to sophisticated digital creation and rendering of motion
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