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Radiological Society of North America -- 1991
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What an exciting event! My first venture into a multimedia
medical/scientific exhibit! For one cold week in Chicago's
McCormick Place, I exhibited my Renal Nuclear Medicine Teaching
File.
The Amiga 2000's and monitors were courtesy of Commodore, who were
very supportive. The internal boards and software were my own.
I based my teaching application on the Hyperbook authoring program
(Gold Disk). For convenience and power, it ran circles around
everything else.
I used a Panasonic black and white video camera in conjunction with
GVP's IV24 board to demonstrate frame capture of medical images. I
still use this combination when I need to digitize large images, such
as x-rays.
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Radiological Society of North America -- 1991
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I also displayed an instructional videotape on how
to create multimedia programs on the Amiga. It was edited on a
Newtek VideoToaster!
If you look closely to the right, you can see some of the equipment
I sent from my apartment in New York including a Supra modem, an
external CDROM, an external hard drive, and an external Mac floppy.
I had installed AMAX, the MacIntosh emulator from ReadySoft, and ran
Mac as well as Amiga software.
Little wonder, then, that I received an offer to exhibit my project
at the National Library of Medicine in Bethesda, Maryland.
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Radiological Society of North America -- 1991
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The grey Sony monitor you see in the center is
displaying output from the Firecracker 24, a 24 bit graphics display
board from Impulse. To its right is an Amiga 3000 running a continuously
looped Scala presentation. On the far right of the picture is an external
floppy and another external CD ROM on loan from ReadySoft.
If I am not mistaken, I have a Perfect Sound voice digitizer between the
Amiga 2000 and the Sony monitor. What an exhibit it was!
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Radiological Society of North America -- 1991
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What I remember most, even after all these years, is not
just the large number of people who stopped by, but the significant
amount of time they spent at my area. It wasn't walk-bys like
what I saw at other exhibits but people who really got involved.
This was amazing since there were thousands of other exhibits and
time to see only a small fraction.
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Radiological Society of North America -- 1991
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The Amiga presentation was extremely well received. The
Annual Meeting of the RSNA typically attracts in excess of 30,000 medical
professionals from around the world. With good marketing and continued
technological developments, the Amiga could have become a major player
in any of several markets including medicine and education.
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Society of Nuclear Medicine -- 1992
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In 1992, I presented an enhanced Renal Nuclear Medicine
Teaching File at the Annual Meeting of the Society of Nuclear Medicine.
The SNM, having seen how successful the InfoRAD exhibits were at the
Annual Meeting of the RSNA, decided to have computer exhibits of their
own.
Unfortunately, many visitors were initially unaware that there were
computer exhibits. Once people found out, there was plenty of interest.
Commodore supplied the computers and monitors while I supplied all
other equipment. I had three Amigas running, all offering something
different.
Visitors like the computer exhibits and the SNM pronounced the whole
experiment to have a been a success, promising a more central location
at future meetings.
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Society of Nuclear Medicine -- 1992
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The Amiga 3000 ran a Scala slide show while the Amiga
2000 ran the Renal Nuclear Medicine Teaching File application.
People were amazed that that a multimedia authoring package like
Hyperbook could do so much, be so easy to use, and yet be so inexpensive.
I remember sitting down and showing visitors how to create a page.
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Society of Nuclear Medicine -- 1992
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The space was small but packed with equipment. There
was a lot of interest in the video camera/frame capture method of
digitizing images. The most common question was about how to get
images into a computer. A number of people were interested in making
their own teaching files and wanted to know just how difficult that
might be. Others just wanted to understand the process more clearly.
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Society of Nuclear Medicine -- 1992
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At some point during the exhibit, I stopped trying to
impress people and decided to help them instead. I can't tell you how
much this was appreciated.
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Society of Nuclear Medicine -- 1992
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There was a great deal of interest in my making the
Renal Nuclear Medicine Teaching File a commercial product. Many
people even asked if I could supply them with Amigas!
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New York Academy of Sciences -- 1992
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While I enjoyed presenting Amiga applications to
other medical professionals, I also tried to reach young people, as,
for example, at a meeting held at the New York Academy of Sciences,
intended for high school students and their teachers.
Kids are bright but they want to know specific things. They have a
lot on their minds. You really have to be flexible and listen if you
are to be of help.
In between graduate school and medical school, I taught 9th grade
science in a junior high school.
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New York Academy of Sciences -- 1992
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There are many pensive moments in any presentation.
Kids are a tough audience. They ask tough questions and know when
they aren't getting straight answers.
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Society of Nuclear Medicine -- 1993
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In 1993, I demonstrated a new multimedia application
at the Annual Meeting of the Society of Nuclear Medicine called
"Patient Education in Nuclear Medicine." It was an instant hit
because it filled an important need. It won second prize.
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Society of Nuclear Medicine -- 1993
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These are not small meetings. Shipping, setting up,
and then repacking all the Amigas and peripherals is no small matter.
It is expensive as well!
This meeting was held in Toronto and all my possessions had to go
through customs. During the day I sat with the Amigas while at night
I worried that no one with sticky fingers would remove anything. No
one did.
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Society of Nuclear Medicine -- 1993
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But it was all worthwhile. The interest was tremendous.
Many people wanted the program translated into various languages. There
was great demand that it be made commercial.
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Society of Nuclear Medicine -- 1993
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The authoring program I used was Helm (Eagle Tree
Software). It allowed the GVP IV24 board to open a
"picture-in-picture" (PIP) window on the main screen through which
I played a Toaster-edited video. I controlled the VCR from Helm,
using an AREXX script to send pulses via Air Link (Geodesic Design)
IR controller to the VCR. The net result was that by selecting VCR
play in the application, a user could watch, in the corner of the
Amiga screen, an instructional video in which I answer commonly asked
patient questions about Nuclear Medicine.
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Society of Nuclear Medicine -- 1993
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Many people left business cards. My booth was
easily one of the busiest. |
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Society of Nuclear Medicine -- 1993
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People were VERY interested. They made extensive
visits. One person said that he felt the patient education program
fulfilled "informed consent" requirements. Another felt that it
would reduce malpractice incidents.
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Society of Nuclear Medicine -- 1993
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Many people really enjoy a "hands-on" experience.
For me, a successful exhibit is measured in the time people spend
using the application rather than a "body count" of semi-interested
passers-by.
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American Society for Information Science, Metropolitan
New York Chapter -- 1993
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Library science professionals are in the forefront
of using computers for storing, displaying, and educating. I was
impressed by their sharpness and desire to learn all about -- and
acquire -- cutting-edge technology. I was honored to demonstrate
my multimedia education programs to them.
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Society of Nuclear Medicine -- 1995
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By 1995, I had actually completed several new
projects including a neural network diagnosis application, an
algorithmic approach to diagnosis, and a keyword-searchable
database of bone images, based on GraphicRecall (Focus GbR).
The application allows comparison of clinical images with
databased images based on keyword descriptors.
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Society of Nuclear Medicine -- 1995
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There were five applications on display. From the
judges point of view, my exhibit covered too much and so it didn't
receive any awards. From the visitors point of view, it was a
winner.
Actually, the applications were tightly integrated. They all had
something to do with how we make diagnoses. They demonstrate the use
of algorithms, neural networks, and the databases in our minds to
diagnose human disease.
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Society of Nuclear Medicine -- 1995
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My karate instructor assured me that Karate was not
about punching and kicking but "making the friendship."
People get to know you and it is fun to see old friends and make new
ones.
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Society of Nuclear Medicine -- 1995
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Visitors seemed truly interested in the medical education
projects and were not at all negative about them being on an Amiga.
To my right, you can see a Commodore CD32 with an SX-1 system on display.
Although under-appreciated, it is a very functional unit even today.
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Society of Nuclear Medicine -- 1995
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In all my presentations, I felt that my multi-media
educational exhibits were judged on their own merits and that the
Amiga was fairly and warmly perceived. Although I think I could
have accomplished similar things on other systems, the Amiga made
it easy, affordable, and fun.
But what of the future? What is the next exhibit? You are using it.
It is this website and the HTML projects on it. Neither of us have
to travel for you to learn of my work. But, the personal aspect is
lost and you have no way to see my A1200 with the Surf Squirrel and
my new Syjet 1.5 GB drive. So, yes, there will be new meetings and
new presentations.
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