Raytracer 1.0

Hi, all...

Sorry to barge in here as a newbie with an obscure request, but, well, that's exactly what I'm doing.

So, once upon a time there was a little demo released that some of you may have seen and/or heard about, called the Juggler. The gentleman who wrote that demo, Eric Graham, went on to write a 3D modeling / ray tracing application called Sculpt 3D, published by Byte by Byte and the first of its kind on a personal computer.

Between these two events, Graham distributed several disks and newsletters to members of a sort of ray tracing club he organized. The first of these, Raytracer 1.0, contained the scene data used to construct the Juggler. I realize this is quite a long shot, but does anyone have this disk buried in their archives somewhere?

I'm interested in this in relation to a sort of Amiga history project I'm working on. It's not something I can quite discuss publicly at this point, but I think it will do justice to the Amiga's place in computing history, a place which gets so often overlooked.

Best,
Jimmy

[hit]

hi & welcome,

looks promissing, but i cant help here. i dont have it.
while googling i found a reference to an article he wrote:
http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=37411

Graham, Eric, "Graphic Scene Simulations", Amiga World, May/June 1987, pp. 18-95.

the issue has been scanned by bombjack already, but no direct download.
maybe someone has this or you can find the torrent.

Edit#1:
- the raytracing-club was called: "The Raytracing Newsletter" (taken from google groups).

- RTNews7:

RT: RT was the first ray tracer written for the Amiga, by
Eric Graham. It will model a universe made of only
spheres, a sky, and a checkered or solid ground. It
is relatively fast, but not generally useful for
realistic modeling because of the sphere limitation.
The input language is cryptic, although some error
checking is done. The system will only generate low
resolution images.

- a user called Bob Eaton from the usenet-posting above, said he has raytracer source - back in 1998 - but his website is still working - maybe you can contact him on this matter:

I have Ray Tracer 1.0 =A9 1987. It has 3 _C_ files (rt1.c, rt2.c,rt3.c)
and one robot.dat file. It looks like that may be it.s a bit.
...
Bob Eaton / Head Spazmo
http://www.spazmo.com

- same chance for Marvin - the website is still working - he is the one, who might still have the newsletter disks (see google-usenet-posting above).

I hope this helps a bit.

[prowler]

Originally Posted by Jimmy_Maher

Graham distributed several disks and newsletters to members of a sort of ray tracing club he organized. The first of these, Raytracer 1.0, contained the scene data used to construct the Juggler. I realize this is quite a long shot, but does anyone have this disk buried in their archives somewhere?

Hi Jimmy,

Here's the original archive of Version 1.0 of the Juggler demo program from Fred Fish Disk 97:
http://www.nic.funet.fi/pub/amiga/fi...97/juggler.lha (241kB)

I'm not familiar with the format of the raytracing scene data you require, but the archive contains a file called 'movie.data'.

Good luck with the Amiga history project!

[hit]

Originally Posted by prowler

I'm not familiar with the format of the raytracing scene data you require, but the archive contains a file called 'movie.data'.

if i got that correct, the movie.data is some special constructed anim format, before ANIM appeared. aminet has a tool to recreate iff pics from this movie.data ( http://aminet.net/package/gfx/conv/unmovie ).
I'm sure Jimmy is looking for the real scenefiles

- scenefiles mentioned here too: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/200...aytracing.html

Thanks for the tips and the welcome, everyone.

As noted, I'm not looking for the Juggler demo itself, which is of course widely distributed, but rather for the scene files used to render the demo in ssg, the Sculpt 3D precursor Eric developed for his personal use.

I've already contacted Bob Eaton, who had this stuff ten years ago. He is looking, but I'm not optimistic at this point. I did confirm with Ernie Wright that the disk contains the files I'm looking for; he once had it, but lost it between computer upgrades.

I'll follow up on some of these and see where they take me. If I can find it, I'll make it available here; it's a small but significant piece of Amiga history, I'd say.

I do have the AmigaWorld article mentioned. It's incredibly useful, and does have some rendering source code, but not the scene files.

[hit]

seems, you already have done a good research
hopefully some of these people may help. did you tried contacting Eric Graham himself - does anyone know what he is doing right now anyway?

did you got the whole pdf of the AmigaWorld issue? i'd like to get this one too - I open a request for it

good luck, and keep us informed.

Edit#1: here is a contact adress of E. Graham, a company he is/was working on: http://www.diralg.com/ - if not already sold, you can buy his old home

I have been in contact with Mr. Graham, who (like, it increasingly appears, everyone else) has lost the files.

I actually have the AmigaWorld that contains the Juggler article in (gasp) hardcopy. Actually, I have pretty much every AmigaWorld and Amazing from their premieres until just shortly after the 1994 Commodore bankruptcy. I just don't have the time right now to make them available in any organized way, but if there's something anyone is looking for specifically I could scan in an individual article or two.

[hit]

Originally Posted by Jimmy_Maher

I have been in contact with Mr. Graham, who (like, it increasingly appears, everyone else) has lost the files.

oh no, i dont get this :/

I actually have the AmigaWorld that contains the Juggler article in (gasp) hardcopy. Actually, I have pretty much every AmigaWorld and Amazing from their premieres until just shortly after the 1994 Commodore bankruptcy. I just don't have the time right now to make them available in any organized way, but if there's something anyone is looking for specifically I could scan in an individual article or two.

thnx for offering, but as said in the other thread, the scans are already done; hopefully the torrent will follow once.
at lemon64.com bombjack (DLH) is posting sometimes, also about his scans - maybe he is announcing such torrent there.

[Minuous]

Now that the article is available for download, I read it and am likewise interested in obtaining RayTracer and the project files pertaining thereunto.

Did it ever turn up anywhere...?

[kamelito]

Originally Posted by hit

hi & welcome,

looks promissing, but i cant help here. i dont have it.
while googling i found a reference to an article he wrote:
http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=37411

the issue has been scanned by bombjack already, but no direct download.
maybe someone has this or you can find the torrent.

Edit#1:
- the raytracing-club was called: "The Raytracing Newsletter" (taken from google groups).

- RTNews7:


- a user called Bob Eaton from the usenet-posting above, said he has raytracer source - back in 1998 - but his website is still working - maybe you can contact him on this matter:


- same chance for Marvin - the website is still working - he is the one, who might still have the newsletter disks (see google-usenet-posting above).

I hope this helps a bit.

Maybe back2roots have them search for rt1.c etc there : http://ftp.back2roots.org/back2roots...er_130/mca/mca Kamelito

[Minuous]

It seems it is on one of the Micro Computer Associates (MCA) PD series...however BTTR don't seem to have this series, nor does anywhere else...I don't suppose anyone knows a site hosting that series? (I had never heard of it until now.)

[kamelito]

probably out of business

AMIGA SOFTWARE

Over 85 disks of only the best of the Public Domain and Share-
ware. Tested and sorted into the following categories:
Animation, Applications, Games, Graphics, Information, Music,
Programming, Sound, Telecommunications, and Utilities.
For a free list, send a business size SASE to:

Micro Computer Associates, Amiga Software,
P.O. Box 5533, Katy, TX 77491-5533.

[dottyflowers]

Hi all,

it appears I've found the disk Jimmy was looking for. It's the Raytracer 1.0 disk Mr. Graham sent around with 3 rt.c source files. I've put it online here: http://bit.ly/K4LTFv

Feel free to add it to the zone.

[emufan]

hiya dottyflowers,

nice find, thanks for sharing

i put a copy into the zone, but you can join yourself.
the zone hold files for 60 days, but a copy will be made on the eab fielserver.
crashdisk from tosec team will add this one to the collection too - so it wont get lost anymore

thanks.

[dottyflowers]

Awesome, glad to contribute. I'll look into the zone FAQ and fileserver. Feels kind of rewarding to be able to add something back to the community/TOSEC collection

[emufan]

there you've found something special for sure
not sure about Ernie Wright, but Eric Graham contact data may still work - I'm sure they are interested

[dottyflowers]

It did took me a long time sifting through online and offline auctions to get it, I mainly collect hardware but for some reason this disk always stuck in the back of my head. I was kind of thrilled when I found it even though I knew I was only going to make no more than a handful of people really happy in the world besides myself

Thanks for the contact details, I've sent Mr. Graham an email and it didn't bounce just yet!

PS: A huge retro collection became available for sale over here in the Netherlands recently, I wonder if you have seen the pictures! Amongst the hardware there are loads of boxes filled with software aswell!

https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=57857...Mer5JNqv6jTpng

[emufan]

Originally Posted by dottyflowers

Thanks for the contact details, I've sent Mr. Graham an email and it didn't bounce just yet!

good news
Ernie Wright may work for the NASA, if this page is still valid.
there was an event on google+, were he is listed on the panelist - so the address may still work

edit: archive.org lists his website with a mail-address ( erniew ( at ) comcast.net )

PS: A huge retro collection became available for sale over here in the Netherlands recently, I wonder if you have seen the pictures! Amongst the hardware there are loads of boxes filled with software aswell!

no, I did not saw this one. really huge, Dave Haynie photo (#234) with his AAA-chipset motherboard (!?), very cool too

[dottyflowers]

Thanks for digging up the email address! I did sent an email earlier to the nasa address but no bounce or reply yet. If I don't hear anything in a day or two I'll try the comcast one.

[Crashdisk]

It's strange, I do not see any difference in content between the original and the repaired version ...